All the Myriad Faces: Nini's Book
by Gepetto
Summary: Avatar Aang is dead, and it's up to his successor to finish his work and find some trace of the Air Nomads. But as she does so, Fire Lord Zuko and his family make moves which cannot quite be declared to be, ahem, entirely above reproach. SLOW UPDATES
1. 50 Sentences Nini

How to say this? I screwed up. Majorly. I didn't consider my future schedule well enough, and now I'm falling behind. I'm nowhere near done writing this, and yet I'm going to be starting up college soon (summer semester). I may not be able to keep up with the snappy updating schedule I once had, although I'll be able to give you two weeks' notice beforehand. There's a poll up on my profile, asking what you'd prefer me to do, updates-wise.

/sigh.

At least I've learned my lesson from this. I had thought that finishing a story before uploading it would be good enough, but from now on I'll make sure to finish the whole series beforehand (though I'll try and post teasers now and again, so that people know I'm still alive).

Many apologies.

_Review Points: 188 (12 points left)_

**All the Myriad Faces: Nini's Book**

"_There's balance, and then there's Balance."_

—_Fire Lord Zuko_

_#1 Ring— _She had to let it go.

_#2 Hero— _She's expected to save the world, just because she was born

_#3 Memory— _It taunts her, in the silence of the night, between the time she lays down in bed, and when she finally falls into sleep

_#4 Box_— Until you open it, a box can hold anything

_#5 Run— _She wondered if that's what she was doing

_#6 Hurricane— _Some things should not be faced head on

_#7 Wings— _She wonders what it would be like, to Airbend so gracefully as Avatar Aang

_#8 Cold— _The chill autumn wind reminds her of home, and so she quickly goes back inside

_#9 Red— _When she arrived at the Palace, they told her that she would wear this for as long as she stayed

_#10 Drink— _The entire family seemed to be obsessed with tea.

_#11 Midnight—_ She was forced to wait for it alone, for she never found anyone who would stay up with her

_#12 Temptation-- _To see him again

_#13 View-- _From this ledge, by the Bison's statue, she could see for miles below

_#14 Music— _She let herself pour into it

_#15_ _Silk— _The material always reminded her of her parents (and it stained horribly)

_#16 Cover— _She expressed her thanks later, for when the boy backed up her story

_#17 Promise— _"I'll never leave you"

_#18 Dream— _Once she dreamed often, but now, it occurs rarely, and she dreads them

_#19 Candle— _It can hold back the dark, but not what's in the dark

_#20 Talent— _Her Koh-face was something she wished she'd never had to gain

_#21 Silence— _She trained in a frenzy, exhausting herself so that she'd fall asleep immediately

_#22 Journey— _To each of the Four Nations she went, and then, she found it in a most unexpected place

_#23 Fire— _There was something sacred about it

_# 24 Strength— _Every last one seemed to car for her, in their own way, and she could do anything so long as they were there

_#25 Mask— _The mask she's looking at was once worn by the great-grandfather of her husband

_#26 Ice— _She detested the reminder, and hated even snow

_#27 Fall— _The changing colors told her that she'd soon be inside for awhile

_#28 Forgotten— _Then one day, she comes to a place she thought was home

_#29 Dance— _He, especially, loved to dance, but none of his family left her alone

_#30 Body— _After awhile, it could take whatever punishment she put it through

_#31 Sacred— _As she walked, she kept waiting for some spirit to strike her down for her insolence

_#32 Farewells— _"I'll be alright, Nini."

_#33 World— _It's all open to her, now, and she will see it all

_#34 Formal— _They teach her etiquette, as well, though they themselves would never be so rude as to explain why

_#35 Fever— _She couldn't move, and wondered if she was going to die

_#36 Laugh— _Hearing her children isn't enough to keep her going anymore

_#37 Lies— _"I'll be alright, Nini."

_#38 Forever— _She should have realized that she'd outlive him

_#39 Overwhelmed— _Some things are just too much for a little girl to handle alone

_#40 Whisper— _So that the others wouldn't get woken up at night

_#41 Wait— _She can't do it anymore

_#42 Talk— _Koh had the answers, she thought

_#43 Search— _Some must have survived, somewhere

_#44 Hope— _She would succeed where Avatar Aang could not

_#45 Eclipse— _They needed the sun in more ways than one

_#46 Gravity-- _What comes up must come down, crashing into the earth

_#47 Highway— _All roads lead to Ba Sing Se

_#48 Unknown— _Sometimes, it was worse knowing, and the only thing that helped was that he may have been lying

_#49 Lock— _Their first time, they forgot the latch on the door, and the knowing smiles she'd get would turn her face red even thirty years later

_#50 Breathe— _Her husband seems to treat each breath as a gift, as something almost holy, and she knows quite well why


	2. Reset

**Part One: Bitter Work for a Girl So Young**

"_All old people know each other. Don't you know that?"_

—_King Bumi of Omashu_

**Chapter One: Reset**

_Water Year 1164_

_The Bei Fong Estate, Province of Gaoling, The Earth Kingdom_

Zuko stopped the ostrich-horse and slipped off, groaning. The ride had been a long one, but in a way he was happy for it, aches and all. It was the first time in years that he'd been able to go someplace while being able to know that his bodyguards weren't within ten feet of him, since his attendants weren't all too fond of the idea of _Fire Lord Zuko _doing something not entirely befitting a man of his rank. Something like actually taking a walk outside the Capital City with his children. Alone, too, if the "scandal" of it all could be increased any further.

He knocked on the door, though he knew that it was unnecessary; One of the servants outside had seen him arriving, and went inside minutes before he'd gotten to close enough to even read the tiny script of the sign up on the door. "Property of Bei Fong Toph. If you're not on the payroll… STAY AWAY." Below this, in slightly larger lettering just to ensure that it was noticed (and hopefully before the main message was), there was another message, from the staff of the Bei Fong Estate, apologizing for their mistress, and hoping that any visitors would realize that she just wasn't fond of company.

Chuckling softly, something he hadn't done for far too long (Agni, he hadn't even seen his grandchildren for _months_), the door was opened by a tall woman, one who he could have sworn was a twenty-four-year Song except, of course, that Song would have been an old woman by now. She gasped when she saw him. "Fire Lord— Fire Lord Zuko!"

"Zuko, please," he told her as she began to bow in what she apparently thought was the Fire Nation style of doing it. It was horribly executed, and Zuko found it difficult to restrain himself. It would hardly be proper to humiliate her, after all.

"Y—yes. Of course, Fir— Zuko," she stammered. "What brings you to our mistress' estate?"

"I have some news, and a request from an old friend of ours."

"Oh, my. She… She doesn't much like it when other people come in, but… I'm sure she'll make an exception for you. Please wait out here," she said, and froze. "Oh, spirits. I'm sorry. I know you're the Fire Lord and all but…"

"I'm fine, ma'am."

"Of course. Yes. I'm sorry, though. But I don't think she'd make an exception even for you. I'm—"

"I was wanting to talk to Toph," Zuko reminded her, and she took off like an arrow, still frantically apologizing as she went, and then suddenly changed the target of her apologies as she nearly bumped into her employer. Toph was still short, perhaps only a few inches taller than she'd been at twelve, and her eyes had lost whatever coloring they'd once had.

She looked old not just in body, but perhaps that was to be expected. She _was_ old. They were _both_ old…

"Oh, dear. Spirits, I'm sorry, mistress—"

"Lily, dear?" Toph interrupted.

"Yes."

"Shut up, dear, or I'll have to fire you. I don't pay you to apologize, Lily."

The servant shot off again, and Toph sighed. "It's nearly as irritating as the war, isn't it? Being rich and famous ain't all it's cracked up to be, eh?" Toph snorted. "So what do you want, 'Fire Lord' Zuko?" she asked, walking away.

"Aang is dead."

She paused for a split instant, and Zuko wouldn't even have noticed had he not trained himself to be attentive to even the tiniest of details _many_ decades ago. When you were at risk of being assassinated at any second, it kind of came with the job. "Is that all? Or do you still feel the need to keep wasting my time?"

"That's it? I thought you would care a little bit."

"I stopped caring a long time ago. I've grown past all of that," Toph said. "We were friends, a long time ago, but… Hell. Things happened. The Red Roses happened. _Life_ happened."

Hands in his cloak, Zuko slowly looked around the hall, taking note of the bare walls, and the absolute lack of anything at all. It seemed that Toph hadn't done much to spruce up the old estate after taking control.

"Aang would like it if we told his successor about his life," he told his old friend.

Toph opened a door and walked into a small room, containing nothing but a small table, three chairs, and a large, coffin-like stone near the table. Taking a seat in the chair nearest the stone, and motioning for Zuko to sit down as well, she finally answered. "_You_ tell her."

"That's it?" Zuko asked. "What _really_ happened to you? Do you realize that after you left us, there were maybe four periods in your life before now when my people could keep track of you for more than two weeks? What has happened to you?"

"I did stuff," Toph replied. "I tried to find something to occupy my time. Ruling that one place, Omashu it was, should have told me that I wasn't cut out for having swarms of sycophants, but I suppose I didn't really learn that, seeing where I am now. And I wandered around, and just plain tried to lose myself, and the war with the Red Roses happened sometime around there, and after that brief toss I went back to wandering, and… Eventually decided to teach others how to Metalbend. And then started wandering around again once my earliest students had graduated, and could start teaching the other students."

"A… 'toss,' Toph? That's all it was to you?"

"More than it was to you, Mr. Playing-Both-Sides."

Zuko stared at her, and found that he couldn't find his voice.

"Yeah," she muttered. "I know all about it. Frankly, I'm surprised that you never killed Aang."

"How did you…. How did you find out?"

The old woman stared into him, cold dead eyes looking blankly into his, and he felt like she was peering into his soul. "One of your Dai Li punks. I can't remember his name."

Realization hit him. "Gansu… But… It was always curious, but…"

"Come on, Zuko. How could a _Dai Li_ just trip into a raging river and get carried to a waterfall with a damned five-hundred foot drop?"

"It could happen, and after awhile, when nothing more happened…"

"That's what I thought you'd decide," Toph said. "I also figured that he'd be too bashed up for you to notice what I'd done to him, though I had to drag his body back up a second time to make the damage look 'right.' I didn't want you to see the knife wounds, no."

"But why didn't you say anything?"

Toph shrugged. "It had happened a long time ago, even then. What good would it do? And I didn't care, anyways. No matter what you did, there'd still be the same muggings and murders and rapes happening down at the bottom of society. That's what I was concerned about by that point. If you had actually gotten the stones to kill Aang, and won the war the way you were first intending to, I still would have experienced the same things and still had to put down the same exact people. A mere change of rulers wouldn't have really made it any worse or better for the common folk, once everything had stabilized."

"So you won't tell her anything about Aang when you train her?"

Now Toph laughed. "You do presume too much, Fire Lord! Who said I was going to train Aang's stupid replacement?"

"You're the greatest Earthbender alive," he responded. "And I've already broken one rule, so why not another?" was something he _didn't_ say. There's a lot that Zuko said only in his head.

"Zuko, I'm tired. More tired than you can imagine. I just want to be left alone. I want to able to finally have some peace before I die."

"We're all tired," was what he might have continued to say, as he spoke up. "Toph—"

"Get out!" she ordered. "Don't you _dare_ come back again. I've spent too long trying to put this behind me, and I'm not going to put all that to ruin."

"So this really was just a waste of time, then, wasn't it?"

She gave a sharp nod, somehow smirking and frowning at the same time. "I told you, didn't I?"

He sighed, and got up, but had hardly gotten to the doorway before he paused, and spoke again. "Why did you come back, then?" he asked.

"What do you mean?"

"You said that you were trying to forget all this, but then why come back to the family estate? I can't imagine that it doesn't hold any bad memories."

A pair of hanging figures out in front of the estate were what had greeted her, during the war with the Red Roses, and they both know that she would soon wish that they _had_ been her parents once she'd stepped inside and seen what had really happened.

"Family loyalty, I guess," is what she muttered. "Somebody had to come back, and carry on the name."

"But you haven't got any children," Zuko pointed out.

"I told her to stay away," she responded. "She's probably reading in her room right now. She's a reader, she is."

The Fire Lord flipped around, astonishment on his face. "You have a kid?"

The stone opened up, revealing itself to be a box, and she removed a small straw-filled doll from it before the lid sealed up again as if it had never separated. Toph faced the doll, almost as if she were staring at it, for a long time before she answered. "She was on the streets. You'd like her," she said, never taking the direction of her blind gaze away from the doll. "This is the only thing she had. She was clutching it for dear life when I found her, and that's when I decided to take her in. The Bei Fong line would get an heir, and she'd get a home. Win-win."

"What about yourself? You're not the Bei Fong line itself."

"She can… She can be given what I didn't have." The old woman shook her head slowly. "That's why I keep those idiots around, though. My little girl's like a dream come true, and some days... It just gets… I don't… don't want to ever have to wonder if it's just all in my head."

"I'll leave you. I hope you can be happy, out of all of us," Zuko said, but she had stopped listening to him, and he left.

Stepping out the door and walking off the grounds of the estate, neither the Fire Lord nor his agents would ever walk toward it again for nearly a century. It may, or may not, have been better off for all involved if it had been a little bit closer to a full century before they returned, but that's another story entirely.

**xoooxoooxooox**

_Water Year 1174_

_The Ruins of Maniyok_

Devastation.

Countless decades ago, the Red Roses had delivered a mighty blow here, ensuring the withdrawal of the Water Tribes from the war. The city had been one to rival Sinaliarpok, all those years ago, but no more.

Now, the jewel of a culture was a corpse, mummified by the shrieking winds and dry air, frozen in time. The Southern Tribe was scattered to the winds, but all things considered, they didn't greatly mind. They had always preferred to wander. It kept them strong. It kept them hardy. The Southern Tribe could withstand anything that the world could throw at it, and this had been true for more than a thousand years, for more than five thousand, ever since the time of the first Avatar, when the ancestors of this tribe found themselves struggling for life in an inhospitable frozen desert.

The world was dying, burning, and there was nowhere to run for the those who would become the Water Tribes. They had fled to the very ends of the earth, so far that there _was no earth_, and they knew that this would be the place where they would die. They knew that they would die here, and that they didn't have a choice in the matter. With how little food they had, they didn't even have enough supplies to be able to return and die in the wasteland that was once their homeland. Whether it was from exposure, however, or old age… Now _that_ was entirely up to them.

They did not call themselves the Water Tribes in those days. Indeed, it would be many centuries before either of the two discovered that they had a sister tribe at the other end of the world, but they did not call themselves the Water _Tribe_, either. They were the People. Nothing more, nothing less. For as long as they could remember, there was no other except for them. People from other cities, yes. People from distant lands, yes. But they had the same culture, the same laws, followed the same leaders and had the same ways.

They were the People, and now, as far as these few could tell, they were all that were left. So they learned the ways of the cold land they lived in, learned how to get every scrap of blubber from their prey, learned how to structure their igloos just right so that they could get heat and yet not melt the very things they lived in. They learned the ways of the sea, and the animals that lived within it, learned when it became most dangerous, learned when and where the fish were most numerous, learned of the medicinal properties of some of the varieties of seaweed, learned how to prepare sea prunes so that they did not make one violently ill.

They watched everything, keeping a careful oral record of every detail. They could not afford to miss anything, whether it was the subtle shift one felt a day before a blizzard came in, or the fleeting and easily-missed behavior which an arctic hippo would display when suffering from a certain contagious disease.

So, of course, they noticed the relationship between the sea and his wife, the moon. They had long known of the spirits, long known of Tui and La, but the People had always been far removed from the Spirit World. Now, however, they understood that they could not remain separate, and knew also that they could not declare themselves superior, either. Here was an environment which, finally, forced them to be humble, or else die.

So they petitioned the sea and his wife, sacrificing their dead to the sea and lifting their gaze up to his wife. And the spirits accepted their offerings. The Water Tribes were adopted by the spirits, made neither servants nor rulers, but _children_, _sons _and _daughters_ of the Moon and the Ocean, of Tui and La. They observed the ways of their patrons, their benefactors, watching the push and pull, and it was by understanding this, taking it into themselves, making it their own, that they knew that their offerings had been accepted.

Tui and La accepted them, allowed them to stay within their lands, and granted them power. The greatest of the People were no longer gods among men, and yet they still were. Giving up their immortality, their immunities to all poisons and all diseases, their strength and stamina and keen eyesight, the greatest among the People were no greater than their lesser brethren, because all the People— all of the _Water Tribe_— became equal in the eyes of their new parents.

And yet…

And yet those who had sacrificed their greatness, their exaltation, their supremacy, learned something else in exchange. No longer could they live for centuries on end, but they could, they soon found, still _heal_. And much more. In exchange for dominance of their own selves, they received dominance of their new home. They could control the land around them with the mere movement of their body, bending it to their will, shaping it with no more than intent and motion, and in this way they did not merely survive, but _live_.

For thousands of years.

**xoooxoooxooox**

But now the city was destroyed, and it was inhabited only by animals.

This was why Nini was here. She was a great hunter, famed among the Southern Tribe for her unmatched skill, and she was hunting the most elusive, most dangerous prey of all: the _mole bear_.

It made its lairs beneath the ice, hidden from all but the most careful of gazes, but Nini was no common hunter, of course. Standing on top of the ruins of a collapsed building, she saw the telltale hairline cracks from fifty feet away, and she approached slowly. Nini slid down softly, landing in a pile of newly-fallen snow, and crept toward it carefully, quietly. If she alerted the mole bear, she would be in the fight of her life. Mole bears were terrible creatures, able to decapitate a man with a single swipe, and while Nini was the greatest of all hunters, she knew her limits.

They were barely existent, but _still_…

Amarok, her loyal polar bear dog, gave a quiet growl, and then Nini saw it. "Clever girl," she whispered. "Disguising yourself as a little penguin, eh? That might have worked for someone else, but not _me_."

The polar bear dog was watching her expectantly, and Nini gave a quick smiling nod. Amarok took off, running straight toward the penguin— mole bear, _mole bear_— and Nini's prey gave a quick squawk— _growl_, because mole bears _growled_— and took off.

Nini and Amarok pursued, but the penguin— _mole bear!_— was quick, and almost _too_ intelligent— of course it wasn't too intelligent, it was a mole bear, all mole bears displayed _demonic_ cunning. At this rate, Nini would never catch the thing, weaving this way and that amongst the rubble, scampering over collapsed pillars and Waterbending paths over pits. But then the penguin— _MOLE BEAR!!_— headed up a collapsed platform, one which reached toward the second story of a nearby building, and a most cunning plan began to unfurl in her head.

Oh, it only involved Waterbending a cage of ice around the…. _mole bear_, but it was _still_ cunning. And most brave, too. Who would be so brave as to enrage a mole bear by caging it?

Nini was brave enough, and though its anger would be dangerous indeed— hence why nobody tried to trap them, instead going straight for the kill— she would certainly succeed. She was the greatest hunter in the Southern Tribe, after all.

Nah… Better make that the world. Greatest hunter in the world.

And she was, too. After all, everyone knew that the greatest hunters were from the Southern Tribe, and so if she was the greatest hunter there, it was pure logic to deduce that she was _the_ greatest hunter _anywhere_.

She had no desire for Amarok to get hurt, so she motioned for him to stay behind, down on the ground, before she herself climbed up, heading towards the dangerous mole bear.

Halfway up the fallen platform, though, Nini heard a cracking noise, and froze. Testing it, she moved slightly, and the cracking noise occurred again, this time louder. "Oh, no…"

It started to fall apart, and Nini's only choice was to head up as the lower half of the platform collapsed before she could do anything. Scampering up, she had no time to think about Waterbending. Only getting up, as the platform fell apart behind her with every step. Another crack, sickeningly close to her, and she slipped, and fell.

So this is how it ends, then? Is this how—

"Nini!" someone cried out, and she felt herself land almost softly, though it was still a bit of a bump, and she wouldn't be surprised if she had a bruise on her bottom for a long time. Still, she had survived. Nini, greatest hunter in the world, had survived to hunt another day. Now, to thank her rescuer, and make sure that he knew that she didn't _really_ need any—

"Oh, _Tui and La_," she muttered, suddenly ten years old not just in the real world but finally in her mind, as well.

Standing in front of her was Master Kinto, the oldest and wisest Waterbender in the whole South Pole. And the strictest one, too.

"Mind your language, girl," Kinto said gruffly. "What were you _thinking_? Are you daft? How many times have you been told not to go to the ruins!?" He was nearly yelling, now, though there was a bit of relief evident in his voice, somehow not swallowed up by his not inconsiderable anger.

"I was hunting a mole bear…" Nini muttered, and Kinto's eyes widened.

"A… _mole bear_…" he echoed.

"Yeah. Only it disguised itself as a _penguin_, you see, and then when we were chasing it the penguin— I mean the mole bear which had disguised itself as a penguin, it was a clever girl, oh yes. Mole bears are real smart. I bet it wasn't expecting me to see through its disguise, but of course it didn't know that it was being stalked by the greatest hunter in the—"

"Nini," Kinto cut in.

"Yes?"

"Yes _what_?" demanded her teacher.

Nini sighed. "Yes, Master Kinto?"

"What are we going to do with this girl?" he muttered to himself, and then he returned his attention to Nini. "We're going to have to tell your mother, you know."

"Oh, no…" Nini gasped. Forget what has been previously said about Kinto's personality. The strictest Waterbender in the South Pole— spirits, in _either_ of the poles— was Nini's mother, hands down. "_Please_ don't tell mom! Please!"

"You know that it's dangerous here, Nini," Kinto said. "This is the fourth time you've pulled this stunt."

"I know! She'll _kill _me if she finds out again!"

"Come on," Kinto said, beginning to walk away. "Amarok! Come!"

"Please? I'll… I'll do anything! I'll even play Pai Sho with you whenever you want, even though it's a dumb game and I don't like it because you take too long to decide what to do and—"

"No."

"I'll let you win, Master Kinto! How about that?"

Kinto stopped, and erupted into laughter, eventually falling to his knees, desperate for breath. "Please… Nini…" he said in-between gasps. "Don't say… something… that funny… again… It would… be… challenging… for me to…" Kinto chuckled again. "For me to _lose_ to you, my dear student."

"Please? I'll eat a barrelful of nasty old sea prunes."

Kinto got back to his feet, shaking his head, still smiling. "No. Come on now. I'll make the story sound _worse_ if you don't follow along quickly."


	3. Going To and Fro in the Land, part one

**A/N **I'm updating early, because I just finished chapter two, and I don't know when I'll be finishing chapter three. So consider this early update an apology of sorts, even though it's not nearly good enough. From now on, I'll be updating _All the Myriad Faces_ as soon as possible, as opposed to just on Sundays. Once we get to _Tong's Book_, though, we should be back to the regular schedule. Feel free to tell me how much you hate me for breaking my promises. Well-written flames count as two points, but they'd better be _sincere_. No flaming me just for the points, you hear? XD (and how can I possibly make a smiley emoticon-type thing when you're all likely cursing me under your breath...?)

_Review Points: 192 (8 points left)_

**Chapter Tw****o: Going To and Fro in the Land, Part One**

_Water Year 1180_

_Somewhere in the South Pole, along the seaside_

She stood about five-foot-six, brown-haired and blue-eyed like everyone else from the South Pole (and the North Pole, too, or so she'd heard, and there was a brief moment when she'd wondered why there wasn't any diversity like in this place, but that's neither here nor there).

Sixteen years old today, and Nini didn't feel a drop of difference.

Though she was actually _sitting_ at the moment, which took a few inches off of her, for whatever it's worth.

Nini took another glance behind her, a place already quickly receding off into the distance, growing smaller and smaller with every passing minute.

Her home. The only place she had known.

"So… I'm really the Avatar?" she asked, for what was probably the fifth time in thirty minutes.

Her companion, a tall man with a deep tan, sighed with evident frustration. "_Yeeesss_. How many times must I tell you this?"

"Well, it's not every day that I wake up and get told that I'm the Avatar, now is it? I mean, here I am, feeding Amarok, and then Master Kinto comes along and says, 'Hey, we need to talk, girl'—"

"I know Kinto. He didn't say it like that."

"Eh, whatever," Nini responded. "Point is, I'm just minding my own business, doing the chores that I've been doing for years, ready for yet another day just like all the other ones, what with feeding Amarok and then cleaning up and by that time little Tulimak is running off and—"

"Some of the machines made by the Fire Nation have an off-switch," Sud cut in. "Do you happen to have one? At least for this incessant talking?"

"Is my talking a problem? Anyways," she continued, "I suppose I should try to get back on topic. Where was I?"

"Boring me to death," Sud told her, and he wondered if he would survive the two-day journey to Kyoshi Island. _Why_ did the Avatar have to be an overly talkative girl? And the stories he had heard, about what she did when she _wasn't_ talking… Sud shuddered, and silently vowed to add a few more locks to the chest of alcohol he kept in his room, and to never eat anything she handed to him.

"— why it's a bit hard for me to grasp, really," Nini said, utterly oblivious to the fact that Sud had stopped paying attention. "I certainly don't _feel_ any different, you know. And why did I have to leave so quickly? I mean, it was all boom-slash-bam! Or something." She shrugged. "I only found out I was the Avatar half an hour ago, and here I am, on my way to Kyoshi Island and when am I going to see mom or Tulimak or Master Kinto or anyone else again, huh? Sure, Nasak is probably thrilled that I'm gone, but he shouldn't have left the wine unattended, right? He was just _asking_ for the seal blood to be spiked, you know. It's not my fault if the whole tribe got horribly drunk because— Master Sud?" she called, having finally realized that she didn't have an audience. "Master Suuuud! Where did you go!?"

**xoooxoooxooox**

_Water Year 1180_

_Kyoshi Island, Province of Moka, The Earth Kingdom_

"So who are you?" asked the boy, as Nini hung upside down from a tree.

"Nini. I'm from the South Pole. Are you, too?"

The boy looked at her oddly. "Nooo…. Why would you think that?"

"You just look… a little 'Water Tribe-y,' that's all." Nini shrugged, a gesture which was quite odd given her current position, and she dropped down to the ground. Landing on her back ("I meant to fail that flip"), she stood up with a groan, gently pressing a hand against her back, smiling awkwardly.

"So what are you doing here? I haven't seen you before."

"I'm the Avatar," she said, and though his mouth dropped open with surprise, she didn't pause long enough for him to get a word in edgewise. "Yeah, I was shocked, too. I just found out last week, you know. I don't know why, but they don't ever tell anybody that they're the Avatar until they're sixteen, and since I turned sixteen a week ago, weeeell…" She shrugged, but picked her monologue up again before he could say anything. "So here I am, learning Earthbending from this guy who just popped up a week ago, and hey— 'You're the Avatar, you've got to come with me.' And Master Kinto tells me that he's right, and apparently I've already mastered Waterbending— now _that _surprised me, 'cause old Kinto _never_ seemed to think I was doing the forms right, but _anyhow_, I was in the tree because Sud is _really_ boring and hasn't let me explore at all, and so I'm trying to hide."

Nini took a moment to inhale, and the boy snatched the opportunity. "Would you like me to show you around the village, then?"

She nodded quickly, almost frantically. "Yes-yes-yes! Do you know how amazing this place is? I mean, we don't even have _trees_ back where I come from! And this thing— what's this thing?" she asked, pointing at the ground.

"Er, dirt?" the boy answered.

"No, no! I know _that!_ The stuff growing out of it! It's on the tip of my tongue. Sud told me when we first came, but now I can't remember, and—"

"Grass."

"Right! Grass! We don't have any grass back at the South Pole, you know."

"I'd imagine not."

"But here!" Nini's eyes widened. "And the sun isn't high up in the sky right now," she said, pointing in the air with frantic jabbing motions, "but it's _summer!_ Back Home, the sun is up in the sky _all day and night _during the summer, and when it's winter, it doesn't come up _at all_."

Now it was the boy's turn to look astonished. "Wow. How do you do anything in the winter?"

"Well, we've got lamps and stuff, you know. I mean, we're not totally without light. But it _does_ get really cold, and—"

"I think you might like to talk to Gran," the boy said.

"Oh?"

"Yeah. She's not really related to me, though. But there was a war back when my grandma was a girl, and when her parents were killed, Gran took her in." The boy paused. "You remind me of her. A _lot_. She's a Kyoshi Warrior, too," and there was a hint of awe in the boy's face when he said this.

"Sure. I'd love— Ah!" Nini gasped. "Sud! Gotta go!" she said, and the Avatar took off, running deeper into the forest only moments before a large Earthbender came running after her.

"Nini! Get _back_ here!"

**xoooxoooxooox**

_Water Year 1180_

_The Capital City, The Fire Nation_

He had not been slain by poison.

He had not been slain by an assassin's blade, nor had his last sensation been that of hot flame licking against his flesh.

He had not been slain by a great fall.

He had not been slain through strangulation.

He had not been slain through the treachery of a trusted servant.

He had gone to sleep the previous night, and the following morning… he had simply failed to awaken.

He had been ninety-six years of age.

We are all vulnerable to the ravages of time.

Even the living embodiment of his nation, even the greatest Firebender of his time— Fire Lord Zuko.

**xoooxoooxooox**

There was silence in the courtyard. Sixty-five stood here, all of the Royal Family, not a servant among them.

This was a matter to be attended to by the late Fire Lord's children, and grandchildren, and those even further removed from him.

Zuko's corpse lay upon a wooden platform, and at his head stood five personages— Azariya, soon to be the newly-crowned Fire Lord come noon, when Agni was at his highest point. Then Iroh, who took after his namesake in many ways, and whose talents lay in both battle and tea. Ursa was dealing surprisingly well with it, though she had been the closest to him out of them all (if, indeed, any could have been said to be closer to him than the others were). Fudo and Hiashi were close together, always squabbling even in adulthood, but really it had been in a rather more good-natured manner than that found in the rivalry between their father and aunt, and they found that they were only really able to deal with the unexpectedness of their father's death by leaning on each other.

Fudo and Hiashi had always understood each other far better than even their siblings could.

Fifty-nine others, and all of them older than fifteen. Though none had been as prolific in the childbearing department as Fire Lady Mai, it was extraordinary what a few generations could do to the population of a family when children were considered to be more than potential heirs. Not all of them could be close to Zuko at once right now, of course, and many kept their distance.

Seven more, too, the grandchildren of Zuko's own grandchildren, but they were young— infants and toddlers.

Though this number would soon be lowered dramatically, to something like fourteen. Once Azariya ascended to the Throne, his siblings and their descendants would be removed from the "true" ranks of the Royalty, no longer capable of acquiring the crown except in the most extraordinary of circumstances.

They would rejoin the Clan Mu, the clan of Azariya's grandmother, Ursa. Not all that unfortunate, either— the Clan was a prestigious one, though with peculiar rules. It had been risky, indeed, for Ursa to marry into the Royal Family, something normally forbidden to the Clan Mu, and made possible only at Azulon's express— _desperate_, said some— command. It was a testament to the Fire Lord's great power that it was followed. Any other, save for Sozin, perhaps, and the Clan Mu would not have listened, even had they had the crown of the Fire Lord upon their head.

The Clan Mu was a prestigious clan, with peculiar rules, but they were utterly vital, and more than once Azariya found himself wondering whether Uncle Iroh had been wise in causing those rules to be broken.

He looked over at his eldest daughter, twenty feet from Zuko, and nodded. There would be a period of uncertainty, but by Agni, he would make sure that all the loose ends were tied up.

**xoooxoooxooox**

"We will need to tell the _zaibatsu _that they will have to come back next week," Azariya whispered, speaking to his eldest sister.

"They will not be pleased with this," Ursa cautioned him.

"True," Azariya replied, nodding, "but our father has died. Why, the whole nation should be in mourning. The _Fire Lord_ has died. Our nation has died, and it will not reborn until Agni rises to his highest station this midday, when I am crowned Fire Lord." There was a quick, fleeting smile. "Perhaps we could even get the _zaibatsu_ tried as traitors if we catch them being anything less than sorrowful for these next few days. It's not like anyone knows yet that it was old age that did him in, after all, and we always _do_ seem to carry an air of immortality in our latter years. The people seem so _terribly_ shocked each time the Fire Lord dies."

"I'll make sure to tell them, then, and I'll instruct our spies to keep a careful eye out."

"Even the slightest indiscretion, and we could execute all four families… Oh, and sister?"

"Yes?"

"Please tell the Great Sage that we may need to hurry up the coronation ceremony _just_ a tad. I've got to talk with some representatives from the Order. Now that our father is dead, the responsibility of carrying out his plans falls to me, and that includes fulfilling my duties as the Grandmaster."

"So what are you going to tell the Avatar?" Ursa wondered.

"What?"

"Father wanted to tell the Avatar about her previous life. How are you going to do that?"

Azariya smiled sadly. "I'm not. It was an oath made in weakness, and it should not be carried out. The girl will not know anything more of Avatar Aang than what is absolutely necessary."

"You understand how precarious our position is?" Iroh whispered, inserting himself into the conversation. "We're going to need to keep a careful eye on her."

"The _zaibatsu _will not see their demands met. The rabble will be put down. The _Ie_ trade-houses have been humbled already, but we will see to it that they understand perfectly that they are treading a slippery path each day. We will not falter," Azariya intoned, "we will not stumble, we will prevail. We are the Royal Family of the Fire Nation."

This was a time for mourning, yes, but also a time for planning, because even though Zuko had died, the world still moved on, and it would not wait.

Besides, Azariya mused, there was always tea.

So long as there is tea, everything is fine.

**xoooxoooxooox**

A few minutes later, a flame alights on Azariya's finger, and he gently touches the wood upon which his father rests. The fire catches, and soon enough the pyre being entirely consumed by the fire.

Soon enough, there shall be only ash and smoke.

Soon enough, there shall be only ash.

Soon enough, there shall be only memories.

As according to Fire Nation custom.

Even now, there is ash, and there is smoke, curls of flame reaching ever upward, carrying the Fire Lord's soul up to Agni.

This is the way it has been for thousands of years.

And even the memories will pass away in time, as the years press on, and even the legends of Fire Lord Zuko fade away into the mists of history.

**xoooxoooxooox**

_Water Year 1180_

_Kyoshi Island, Province of Moka, The Earth Kingdom_

Irritating lessons in a field.

Lift the rock, Nini. Lift the rock! You're lifting the rock wrong, Nini!

Oh, what sheer and utter howling _joy_.

"You're doing it wrong again," Sud told her, and as Nini dropped her arms with a sigh, the pillar of rock in front of her collapsed as well.

"Oh? And how can I get the 'Make a pillar of rock' technique _wrong_?"

"You're moving too much," Sud explained, and he walked over to her, then began to move her arms. "Now, keep your arms like this," he said, lifting them up about a foot away from her chest. "Move slightly, Nini. Don't guide the rock all the way. Move slightly, so that it knows _where_ to go." Sud pushed them lightly, moving them less than an inch. "Give it the direction, and when it's done, make another motion to tell the earth that it's done. Moving your arms wildly around is going to get them chopped off by a sword or your opponent's own pieces of rock."

"And you really expect me to be able to raise a piece of stone taller than _I_ am, by, by… by _twitching_?"

"Yes," Sud replied, and just to spite her, he lifted a finger and fell back against the six-foot square of rock he lifted up. "Well, come on. Do it. We haven't got all day, you know. Until you get this right, we won't be eating."

And until they ate, she wouldn't be able to go off and see that Water Tribe-looking kid, Lao, and his grandmother. The two of them always had such interesting stories, and actually had the patience to listen to _hers_.

Grimacing, Nini turned back to the open field.

And then turned away once again.

She hadn't been firing out questions nearly as often (and certainly not as fast) in these past two months since her arrival at Kyoshi Island, but something had just struck her as rather peculiar.

"Saaay… Sud?"

"_Master _Sud," he corrected, starting to frown.

"Right, right. How are you able to do this?"

"Practice proper Earthbending?"

"No no no," she said, shaking her head. "The training, I mean. Where do you get the money? I've seen you pay for all sorts of things since we got here, but you don't do a _thing_."

"I'm nobility," Sud responded, and Nini's eye widened.

"Really?"

He shrugged, and his frown grew. "_Maybe_. Depends on who you ask. I'm not one of the Old Families," he said, leaning further against the square of rock.

"Old Families?"

"There's the _Zhuhou Isei_, the Old Families. The ones who have been nobles for as long as anybody can remember. They've got enough political influence and favors and debts owed that they could be rendered destitute and they wouldn't have to change their life style one whit. And then there's the _Zhuhou Fuyuu_."

It was difficult to tell whether he was smiling or frowning as he mentioned this last group.

"We're the families that have the money. Oh, sure the Old Families have their gold, but the _Shokken_—" Sud swallowed. "Forget that. Don't tell anyone I called them that. The _Isei_, we _invest_. We've got the businesses, Nini. It was my grandfather, Shen Quon, who made my family truly wealthy. We directly own thirty percent of the tea shops in Ba Sing Se, and take a hefty cut from all the others set up there, but for a few backroom tea shops. He also came up with a delivery system so that you wouldn't need to enter the Lower Ring for anything, which we've all found rather ironic. The other nobles are just too lazy to take a quick jaunt down there for their purchases. And we still run those businesses, and manage them directly."

"Isn't the Lower Ring really dangerous, though?"

"Only if you go around acting like you come from the Upper Ring. Half the people who get mugged there are people who didn't act right." Sud shrugged. "You could say that they're like wolves. They pick out the ones who look weak, and they pick out the ones who aren't one of them. You look like you're going to be an easy steal, or like you just plain don't belong, and you'll be mugged five different ways before you're five minutes in."

"So you run all that?"

Sud's frown had begun to lessen. Talking about the _Zhuhou Fuyuu_, apparently, did wonders for his mood. "No, my father is the _nan_ of the family right now. Right now, I'm taking some time to do nothing, and then I'll be going to set up some branches elsewhere in the Earth Kingdom. My father was the one to seal the tea monopoly we've got, and I'll be the one to expand our operations out of the city."

He grinned, now, and closed his eyes, and Nini began to edge away. It seemed that, given the right topic, Sud— right, right, _Master _Sud— was just as talkative as her. She had to remember to get him into lecture mode about this stuff more often. "Plus, we've been thinking of getting our fingers in a couple other industries. There's a mail system in Omashu which, if we work it just right, may be capable of connecting entire _cities _with the rapid speed Omashu is known for. And getting a foothold in Taku. Being the tea barons of Ba Sing Se is nice, but more money is always nice. And it makes for more security, though I'll tell you this: There will never be a time when people don't drink tea. Ever. Even in the middle of a war, they'll drink tea, and _someone_ has to— " Sud opened his eyes, and cursed. "Nini! Get back here!"

**xoooxoooxooox**

_Water Year 1180_

_Kyoshi Island, Province of Moka, The Earth Kingdom_

The old woman only ever let Nini call her "Gran" since, according to her, "I'm old enough to be everyone's grandmother, really."

She offered sanctuary from Master Sud's lessons, on occasion, though she couldn't always be counted on doing so. She found it highly amusing to watch her try to avoid getting caught, and at any rate was of the opinion that the lessons needed to be learned, even if they _were_ killing the poor Avatar through sheer boredom.

"Besides, you don't know the least thing about boredom, Nini," she'd always say whenever the girl complained. "Have you ever taken one of those trains that the Fire Nation makes? Try taking one of them back when they were still designing them, and it was noisy and dumpy and took _forever_ to get where you were going. Forget about boredom, I was going _insane_ by the time we were done. Barely got any sleep at all."

Today, however, she was content to let Nini stay hidden. "I suppose you deserve a break right now," she said, grinding some sort of spice in a bowl. Nini wasn't all that eager to find out what it was, since Gran took this as a request from the girl to try it, no matter how vehemently she denied it, and the spices Gran used were always…

Not _bad_, per se. Simply along the lines of sticking one's tongue into a fire. Or cutting it off entirely. After the garam masala, Nini had decided to just keep her mouth shut.

"But you'd better help me if you don't want your cover blown," Gran continued, poking her head into the room Nini was in.

Nini nodded, and headed into the kitchen. "So what do you want me to do, Gran?"

The older woman pointed to a mortar on the table in front of her. "We've got to grind this up so that we can properly preserve it. The spice goes bad fast if it's not properly prepared within a couple of days of being harvested."

Another nod, and Nini took the pestle offered to her, and got to work. "So where's Lao?"

"I sent him to get some fish. We're running a bit low, and the merchants are expecting too much. Oh, I _could_ pay, but I'm not about to give them the satisfaction of _that_." She grinned. "After all, my boy is twelve years old. Old enough to get fish on his own. So, where's _your_ tagalong?"

"I got away from Sud—"

"Master Sud, Nini," interrupted Gran.

"Right. _Master_ Sud. I got away from _Master_ Sud near the docks, almost an hour ago. I tried heading into the forest, but he nearly caught me there."

"So I wasn't your first choice? I'm insulted, Nini."

"Well, come on, it's not like you're entirely reliable, Gran. Half the time you go out and find Master Sud yourself the moment I come over to you."

"Well, you're just so cute and entertaining when you try and get away from him."

"Graaan… I'm _sixteen_. Do you really have to call me 'cute'? Do you?"

"Well, I missed out on sixteen years of doing it, so yes," she replied. "What's with this "I'm sixteen" business, anyways? Back in my day, we were _exact_ about such matters. You should be saying 'Graan, I'm sixteen-and-a-half.'"

Nini stared at her for a moment. "That sounded just like me."

"I know," Gran said, and she smiled again before pointing to the mortar. "Now get back to work. These spices won't be grinding themselves."

"Yes, Gran. And I'm not sixteen-and-a-half, either. I think it'll be a few days before I hit that point."

"Well, we did always round up, in my day. How's your training going along?"

"Dull as the desert, Gran."

"But are you making progress?" she persisted.

"About as much as you did on that train…" Nini grumbled.

"Well, that's excellent, then. That train _did_ go by so awfully quick, it did."

"I thought you said it took forever…"

"It did! It felt like we were crossing half the continent. But that may have been because we _were_. So what have you been learning recently?"

"Eh…" Nini shrugged. "This and that. Yesterday I moved a rock bigger than I was by lifting my hand up a few inches. But Master Sud said that wasn't good enough, since I moved my hand too much."

"You know, he's only trying to make sure that you've mastered it."

"I know, but it's so _dull_. 'Move the rock, Nini! Move the rock!' He's been trying to get me to move stuff by twitching for three months now! He rarely even tells me how to fix what I'm doing, either. I can count on one hand the number of times he's done anything more than just tell me it was wrong, and I needed to fix it."

"What if I give you some incentive?" Gran asked.

"What do you mean?"

"I'm sure Lao has told you about some of the techniques that the Kyoshi Warriors use?"

"Yeeaah…"

"So for every month that Master Sud says that you're up to his expectations, I'll take a bit of time to teach you some Chi blocking moves."

Nini's eye widened, and then she immediately felt someone behind her. "Not going to happen," Sud said. "I'm rather disappointed with you. How many times are you going to run off?"

"Now, now, Sud," Gran said. "She deserves a little spot of time to relax. I _know_ how _hard_ you've been working the girl."

"And now you're planning on teaching her how to block Chi?"

"It won't do anything, Sud. What's the harm?"

"The harm, among other things, comes from the fact that she needs to focus on her training. I'm not going to let you distract her with other things, especially… _that_."

"So she'd be more capable of defending herself, Sud. What's the harm in that? It's not like she isn't pretty tough already, being, oh, that's right, the _Avatar_!" Gran was scowling, and a bit of anger was starting to show, something that Nini hadn't seen before in the old woman. She'd always been so bubbly…

"Could we please talk like I'm not in the room?" Nini asked.

"Nini?"

"Yes Gran?"

"Please leave the room. I'm afraid that I may lose my temper right now, and I'd rather you not see that."

Her head fell and her shoulders slumped, and Nini slowly exited, quite shocked by what was going on. But it was curious, too. Gran was acting strangely, and what was wrong with learning a couple of moves that the Kyoshi Warriors knew?

**xoooxoooxooox**

"The harm in that," Sud said, after making sure that Nini wasn't in earshot, "is precisely because she's the Avatar. Yes, she's dangerous, and that's exactly _why_ we can't teach her anything beyond what she needs to know."

"Is that little girl an actual person to you, or just a tool?"

"She's a walking bomb more in danger of exploding than half the prototypes that come out of the Fire Lord's research division. We can't let—"

"Can't you trust that I know what I'm doing?" Gran hissed.

"No! You _don't_ know."

"Oh? I know full and well what's she capable of. If she went into the Avatar State, it's not like being able to mess with someone's Chi is going to make her any more dangerous."

"_Can_ she enter the Avatar State? That's a big question, and not one we're all the eager to find the answer to, just yet."

"What are you talking about?"

Sud frowned. "Listen up, old woman. I know who you are, and I know why you're here, and I know where you're _from_. And according to all the important records, you're not a citizen of this place."

"Sud!"

"_One word_, and I can get you taken away from here. The kid? Lao? Sure, the other Warriors will take care of him, but…" Sud shrugged. "Maybe they'll think he's not here anymore because he went with you."

"You wouldn't _dare_. You even _think_ about that again, and I'll _kill_ you where you stand, Sud. I'm here freely, and there's nothing you've got against me. I've not done anything for you to—"

"There are certain records, old woman, which say that you once tried to kill the Fire Lord," Sud whispered, and Gran backed up. "You were in Boiling Rock, once. So one step out of line, and you'll be in chains, or perhaps even executed, and Lao will be… Lao is a young kid. He'll adjust to having a new family, I'm sure."

Sud left the room, walking straight past Nini. "Come on. We're going."

"Okay, Master Sud. Sorry for running off."

"No, you're not. Pack your bags when we get to the house."

"Wh—what? What do you mean? We're leaving?"

"That's what I just said, right? I've got business elsewhere."

"Can't I at least say goodbye to Lao and Gran?"

"No."

**xoooxoooxooox**

And back in the kitchen, "Gran" slid down to the floor, back to the wall, feeling old for the first time in decades.

**xoooxoooxooox**

_Water Year 1181_

_Ba Sing Se, The Province of Ba Sing Se, The Earth Kingdom_

Fire Lord Azariya walked slowly through the hall, pushed open the chamber doors, and gave a low bow to the Earth King, who sat before him.

To most onlookers, it was supremely respectful— the bow was even done in Earth Kingdom style— but the two knew that it was anything but. It was as mocking as when a master bows before his slave. The five guards in the room were well aware of this.

"I'm not pleased," the Fire Lord said, walking around the room, stopping briefly by a large brown bear before moving on. It had been there for as long as anyone remembered. It was a nice-looking bear, if a bit strange (not a platypus-bear? you sure?).

"What do you mean, Fire Lord?"

"You know _very _well what I mean!" He took a quick breath and glided over to the Earth King, pulling a scroll out from his robes and handing it over. "It seems that you've been engaging in some business practices which I don't entirely approve of."

The scroll unfurled, and the Earth King paled.

"You see," the Fire Lord continued, "I have discovered that you have recently allowed for some under-the-table trade with the _zaibatsu_."

"I was not hiding anything, Fire Lord," came the quick reply. "They are the ones who create the machines, are they not?"

"Yes, yes," the Fire Lord responded. "But they are not allowed to sell them to foreigners, only rent them out under the supervision of agents of the Crown, and _you_ are not allowed to buy those machines. And you both know this. Don't try and play the fool with me. I'm not my father."

"I know _that_ very well."

"Good. So then we're both on the same page, are we? I will not succumb to weakness, and neither will I allow myself to lose sight of my goals for even an instant. My father…" Azariya sighed. "My father sometimes allowed personal matters to interfere with his vision, but I do not. I'm so _very_ disappointed with you."

"Why are you so angry about this? Why are you so determined to keep the machines under your control?"

Azariya chuckled. "Are you just trying to get rid of my monopoly?"

"Of course. I'd much prefer to save some of the treasury."

The chuckling ended, and was replaced with a frown. "I wish you wouldn't think I was so stupid as to think that I would believe _that_. You've even _donated_ funds to them, sent them resources with nothing in return, and I know why."

The Earth King straightened in his seat. "Why?"

"The _zaibatsu _want the Crown. You know this as well as I. If they have the largest nation in the world backing them up, then what can possibly stop them? But you forgot something."

"What?"

"I won't let it happen. I cannot fault my distant ancestor for allowing the _Ie_ to join the nobility. He was, after all, dealing with the aftermath of a conflict which made The War look like a childhood squabble."

"What war, exactly, was that?"

"The war our fathers spent their lives covering up! I know that he told you all about it, and if it had been me, I would have killed your father for it. In the ten years since you've taken the throne, you've been more trouble than Chin the Conqueror."

"Is that all you—" was all the Earth King was able to get out before the Fire Lord swung his hand, stopping only a finger's width from the Earth King's face as Bosco gave a low growl.

"_Do not_ treat me as if I am harmless," he hissed, sparing a quick glance at Bosco. "I hold you in the palm of my hand, and I can kill you in an instant if I so wish."

"My guards will…" The Earth King trailed off as he noted the lack of action arising after the Fire Lord had moved to hit him, and Azariya smiled.

"_Yes_. Did your father ever tell you about the Dai Li?"

The Earth King nodded.

"I doubt that one in three of your guards is not on my payroll. Certainly none of the ones in this room." He paused. "You hold no fear for me, do you?"

"No."

"Why?"

"You are a tyrant, as surely as your father before you," the Earth King spat. "Freedom will come, even if I am not the one to bring it."

The Fire Lord almost looked as if he were considering this. "Your eldest grandson is eight, isn't he?"

"Threats will not work, Fire Lord."

"I'm not threatening anything. I'm sure he's heard some stories, but…" The Fire Lord shrugged. "The problem with your royalty is that you marry late and have few children. You have no other sons but the one, and your wife is not able to ascend to the throne, and neither are your daughters able to."

"Yet my son is in perfect health, and if we both die, it will be suspicious. _Very _suspicious."

"Not if he kills himself in grief a few weeks after your death."

"What of my own? The Earth King is killed by assassins soon after the Fire Lord arrives, and then his son dies quickly afterwards? It will be talked about."

"But it won't. You will only have a heart attack," said the Fire Lord, and he lifted his hand. Electricity crackled, jumping from fingertip to fingertip, and the Fire Lord grinned. "Only three people outside the Royal Family know how to Bend lightning, and only four hundred people in the whole world know of it at all, even as an obscure myth. We do not even allow its mention in stories and legends. So how does one accuse a killer of using an impossible method?"

The Earth King remained still. "So I'm shocked to death, then. That still will be visible. They will wonder, but it will still be known that I was _murdered_."

"No, they won't," countered the Fire Lord, and he reached out to touch the Earth King. The latter gasped, and slumped forward. "Just a short shock, properly aimed, and one has a _perfect_ heart attack. The most deadly of all Bending techniques, and thus the most _subtle_."

The Fire Lord shook his head, grinning, and began to walk out, then stopped, and turned to the Dai Li. "I think that two weeks is a good wait. After that, his son should… Ah, I'm partial to self-impalement as a sufficiently dramatic method, but do whatever you feel would fit his personality. You've been here for years, after all. Do make sure that a note is left, though. We've got to make sure they realize _why_ he killed himself."

A quick nod and a bow to the Dai Li, and _this_ was not in any way mocking.

"Oh, and _many_ apologies to you, Bosco. I wish I hadn't had to kill your boy."

Azariya grinned, and exited the room.


	4. Going To and Fro in the Land, part two

**A/N **Many, many apologies for the late update. I still haven't gotten a reply back from my Beta, so I finally decided to just update this. Please inform me of any errors you spot, if you're inclined to do so.

_Review Replies: _

_Shadow Wasserson: I'm not sure how 'realistic' the assassination was. After all, the lightning-bending we've seen in the show requires some dramatic movement. They don't really bend the lightning so much as just generate and aim it. We never saw a small shock. _True, true. On the other hand, we've never seen lightning-bending used for such a purpose. Let's compare it to Firebending-- If Azariya were to try and throw a massive bone-consuming fireball, would this require something more than an idle wave of his hands? Probably. On the other hand, creating a small flame on the tip of his finger in order to light a candle might take so little movement that it's as if he didn't move at all. And he was only generating and aiming it. Just generating a very small amount, and aiming it at the heart.

Of course, if you've got any further thoughts, please tell me. xD

_Ogro: __Hmm... Ursa is first born, correct? Then why isn't she ruler of the Fire Nation? The roles there seem to be equivalent in gender, since Ozai had no problem letting Azula become Fire Lord. _She was his eldest _sister_, not eldest _sibling_. She was born second, after Azariya.

_But she definitely doesn't seem as bad as her Aunt Azula... And what's with Iroh? Those two just seem to be Azariya's lackeys, along with the twins._ If by "lackeys" you mean "the Ty Lee and Mai to Azariya's Azula," you'd be incorrect. If by "lackeys" you mean "A bunch of Azulas all working together, who happen to look toward Azula-1 for the final word, since _somebody_ has to have the final word, and it may as well be the Fire Lord," then you'd be correct. Of course, by the analogy to Azula, I don't mean to imply their evil ways or lack thereof, in any fashion. You'll receive no confirmation of them until the last few chapters of _Tong's Book_, which will come after this one.

_Well... I was only saying that Azariya may be even more evil than his father because Azariya referred to his father as weak and unwilling to kill the Earth King (or something to that effect) and he's not keeping Zuko's promises to a friend, and he's just being evil and sneaky and I don't like him. lol. _True, but perhaps Zuko just didn't have the guts to do what was needed. Have you read God-Emperor of Dune? While I'm not confirming that Azariya is good, I'd like to provide some ambiguity by pointing out that if he WERE good, this would basically be somewhat along the lines of how. Zuko and Azariya were both good, and they both knew what needed to be done, but Zuko just couldn't go through with it. Azariya, on the other hand, will do what his father couldn't, and he'll act like he enjoys it, possibly because that's part of what needs to be done for the desired effect, but also so that nobody thinks that he's going soft.

Good thing Gran is trying to go against that... But I have a feeling she might be killed off soon. Perhaps. Oh, and while you're going to be seeing more of Gran and Lao in this book, I wasn't intending on it until Ogro convinced me to (unintentionally, mind you, since it was more of a "Wow, I didn't know she'd be _that_ well-liked" thing, but still). This is going to have ramifications on the storyline, and things might turn out either a little bit better, or a little bit worse (or possibly a lot worse). If things go well, great. If things go badly because of this, you all know who to blame. xD

_Review Points: 200 (50 points left)_

_This is a clue: _The death of Avatar Hahn inspired the creation of either the Order of the White Lotus, or the Cult of the Heavenly Emperor. You'll need to figure out if it was the first Fire Lord or Avatar Hahn who set themselves up as the Heavenly Emperor.

**A/N **I _will _confirm this: There are internal struggles right not in the Fire Nation, and even if Azariya were 100% good, he'd be having to choose a few lesser evils to avoid some greater ones. That is not to say, of course, that Azariya _is_ 100% good, or even a small percentage of good.

**A/N** Any review which comments, good or bad, on a particular style I'm using in writing, or anything else which I can then use as more-or-less universal advice for future writing will provide an additional review point. I'm going to be experimenting here and there, especially in combat scenes, so I'd like some feedback. Also, any reasonable speculation as to which characters from the TV series are here will also provide another point. By "reasonable" I mean that you've got to have some sort of thought process behind it, not that it can't be crack. Someone once suggested that Koh was one of the three people who had some unrequited love for Aang, and actually drew it out to apply to the whole line of Avatars, with Ummi's death being the result of Koh's jealousy. This is, by the way, still open, since you people have only nailed Azula (oh that sounds so very wrong). There is also, finally, still the review points which you can gain by connecting various characters to others in terms of who reincarnated as who, and so on.

**Chapter Three: Going To and Fro in the Land, Part Two**

_Water Year 1181_

_Makapu Village, The Province of Gaoling, The Earth Kingdom_

"This one, sir?" asked the fox-faced girl. She didn't really have the face of a fox, of course. It was her mask. The fox was a harbinger of good fortune and good cheer, a helper (though it was well-known that the fox was also more than capable of mischief). Many wore the fox's face when performing small deeds like this. It was a tradition which allowed interaction between helper and helped, preserving anonymity and yet allowing aid to be given more openly— how many helpful folk have been mistaken for thieves and seriously hurt as they skulked around trying to avoid bringing attention to what they were doing?

The fox-faced girl was happy to wear the mask.

"Yes, that's it," said the old man, leaning on his cane, and took the container, then emptied it of its contents, spilling the rice into a deep wooden bowl. Handing the fox-faced girl a thick mortar, he took his cane and began walking over to another of his cabinets. "Now grind that well, and once you're done with that, we can make it into a paste."

"And then we'll add the mushrooms and the moo-sow meat?"

"That's right, that's right. Now, where are the mushrooms?" he muttered.

"Let me get that for you, sir."

**xoooxoooxooox**

_Water Year 1181_

_Kyoshi Island, The Province of Moka, The Earth Kingdom_

Gran. Always "Gran." Half the people on this island knew her only by that name, and the other half never used her real one anyways. Even she didn't think of herself as anyone, anything else, even in her own head. Too many others had died, and she didn't feel the need to carry a name which was the focus of a hundred blessings and a hundred curses, depending on who you talked to, and whether their husbands or fathers or sons had been saved by her or killed by her.

Damn war.

Not that many people even remembered it the way it really went.

"Got to put the fish on in a few minutes," she muttered, and she grabbed her straw broom, the ones with sticks going out every which way, and stepped outside. The porch she'd built outside, a few decades back, was needing sweeping.

It needed a repair job, too, she decided, after hearing a creak which bordered on the beginning of splitting wood. It was old. Like her. Not that _her _bones were broken. Just tired.

She was feeling tired a lot more often these past few weeks.

That's when she felt it, as she began slowly sweeping. Just a feeling, a little sensation. Such a feeling had not ever been a common thing and in fact the last time she'd had it was in the company of the 52nd Earth King, Kuei, _many _decades ago. But she knew what it was, well enough, and what it meant, all the same.

Her family was able to trace their descent from a spirit of hunger named Po, about five centuries back before her birth, and Gran… Gran was a little "touched," as some called it. The blessings— and the curses, too, some might say— of being a spirit's child didn't usually last long in a family, too diluted by mortal blood to have any effect, but sometimes it popped back up.

Like it did with Gran.

And then the prickling sensation turned into an extreme, bone-chilling cold, and she found her knees nearly buckling beneath her.

"I— I can't do that," she stammered, though to the greater world it appeared as if she were all alone— and perhaps she was. "The Earthbender, Sud, he said they'd imprison me. You _know_ what they'd do to Lao.

"I… Yes, I _know_ this is important, but _surely_… They wouldn't let any harm come to her, would they? I mean, in the end, she's not going to be all that hurt, will she?

"Dammit, I _know_ it's going to be hard on her. I saw what happened to Aang with my own eyes. But what can I possibly do? I've got to keep Lao protected from them, too."

Gran sank to the ground, back against the wall. "I've never felt so hopeless in my life… Who knows what they'll do to Lao if I go against the—" She stopped talking, and the tears threatening to pour vanished immediately. She nodded a few times, slowly, half-heartedly at first but then with great conviction and resolve. And confidence. Understanding. "Yeah, yeah, that could work. It would be hard on— I _know_, and I like it better than doing nothing. I'm just pointing out facts here."

Gran looked up, and smiled. "Thank you. We can both deal with it, and they'll be safe. They'll be safe."

**xoooxoooxooox**

_Water Year 1181_

_The Eastern Sea— en route to Ba Sing Se_

The ship rocked violently back and forth in the storm, and the captain was actually getting quite worried by this point. Though nearly every ship had a Waterbender on it now, the one serving on this ship unexpectedly had matters to attend to elsewhere— namely, throwing up and becoming completely bedridden after Nini laced his drink— and the news had come only minutes before the ship was due to depart. Ships had survived without Waterbenders in the past, the captain decided, and they pressed on, a decision no doubt made mostly because Sud had a "pressing engagement" which couldn't be delayed for the amount of time it would take to find another Waterbender.

Nini sat below-deck, reading a book she'd purchased shortly before leaving, and once again declined the captain's request for aid. It was times like this that she was glad old Master Kinto had insisted she learn her letters. Not everybody in her tribe did.

"You need to still the waters," Sud told her, his voice firm and unyielding. It didn't sound like he would be taking "No" for an answer.

"No," came the reply, caring little that its presence was undesired, and Nini adjusted herself, moving the pillow a bit further down and giving a bit more force in the next few kicks she was giving to the wall, to keep the hammock swinging at a regular pace.

"Ah, so you'd like to die, then?"

"Oh, come on, Sud—"

"_Master _Sud," he corrected her, but she went right on without acknowledging it.

"We're not in any real danger right now. When— sorry, _if_ the situation becomes dangerous…" Nini looked over at the stairs where Sud was standing and shrugged. "Well, I guess I'll just have to make my demands then." She smiled, and returned to her book, digging herself further into the blanket she was nestled in.

She didn't care what Sud said, she wasn't going to lift a finger till things went more south than they already had. She chuckled when she realized what exactly she'd thought. There was a reason why things were said to have gone "south" when they went bad, and it had less to do with the direction itself than the people you encountered when you went that way.

"This is your final warning."

"And _this _is _yours_, Sud," she said, glaring at him. "I don't care what you do to me after we hit land, but right now, you have _nothing_. Do you hear me?" Nini slipped out of the hammock and slowly walked toward him. "We're in _my _domain now, and you've got maybe a handful of dirt on this whole ship. So unless you want to dive to the bottom of the sea, then you'll leave me alone. We're not in as much danger as you think."

"You fail to realize that there's no water here in this room, either, Nini," he pointed out, but Sud left a moment later.

About an hour later, a tired Nini pulled herself up top, and set herself to work, calming the waters and making sure that they didn't all die.

At the end of it, she had an angry Master Sud, an amazed captain, and a job offer which, sadly, she had to decline.

**xoooxoooxooox**

_Water Year 1181_

_Kyoshi Island, The Province of Moka, The Earth Kingdom_

"Is the tea ready?" Gran asked, and Lao came inside, setting two cups down on the low table, and joined her at it, sitting on the chair across from her. She took a slow sip from her cup, still steaming, and set it down.

"What's wrong?" Lao asked, staring at her. Still only twelve, and yet so perceptive. Or perhaps her face was showing more than she thought it was.

"You're nearly a man, now, my dear, and so I don't feel as guilty as I probably should when I say…" Gran sighed, and looked away for a moment. "Your friend, Nini… She may be getting into a mess she would be better off avoiding. Someone needs to keep an eye on her. You understand this, right?"

Lao nodded. "Why? What's wrong?"

"I need to be the person to watch over her, because I can't trust anyone else. But…" She took another deep breath. "There are some very bad people in the world, Lao. I'd thought that they were all gone, after Ozai and Azula were defeated, and then the Red Roses came along, and proved me wrong, and yet I thought that all our problems were done with after that. I shouldn't have been so stupid…"

But Lao was only barely paying attention to her, and a thoughtful look crossed over his face. "Who are Ozai and Azula? I don't remember any generals with those names."

She gave a sad chuckle. "There's a lot that's been forgotten. Bit by bit, they've changed everything, covered up the history…" Gran coughed. "I don't blame them all that much, really. It did a lot of good. Nobody is going to start a war of vengeance against the Fire Nation, and nobody in the Fire Nation is going to try and start a war to regain their honor, because nobody remembers that there's anything to avenge, or any lost honor to regain. But now I wonder if they might have been serving themselves, too. The Fire Nation is so industrialized now, and they're keeping the secrets of their machines locked up. The rest of the world has barely progressed at all, and yet the Fire Nation… They have _airships_, and while there's only two of them in operation, who knows how many they've got in storage?"

"Are you saying that the Fire Nation is going to start a war, Gran?"

She shook her head. "No, not at all. At least, I don't think they will. Not yet, anyway. But something bad is going to happen, I can feel it in my bones." She didn't add "And a spirit told me, too."

"So… What are you doing, then?"

"'What are _we_ doing,' is what you should be asking. I've been… I've been _warned_, Lao. If I do anything, you might get hurt. I can't risk you being near me, in case they catch me, but if they do, you're just as much in danger here at Kyoshi Island." Gran took another drink of her tea, now cooling, as she tried to delay what she was getting to. "We're going to have to split up, but you can't stay here, either."

She gave him a moment to take it in, and then continued. "You make good tea," she told him, smiling. "I'd suggest trying to get a job doing that, then working your way up. There's a lot of things to be done, if you're ready to actually do work. Even the Avatar was only twelve years old when he ended the…" Gran paused, realizing that mentioning The War would only make him ask for clarification as to which war, exactly. "He was only twelve years old when he ended one of the worst of the Century Wars. Just try to work your way up, and keep your eyes open, Lao. If you ever hear something which makes you think that Nini is in danger, you've got to help her. I'll be doing the same thing."

"What could possibly happen to her? She's the _Avatar_, Gran!"

"That means precious little when she's only partially trained, and she's surrounded by people who may be her friends, but who I suspect are more probably her enemies."

**xoooxoooxooox**

_Water Year 1181_

_Ba Sing Se, The Province of Ba Sing Se, The Earth Kingdom_

It had been a few months since the "Boat Incident," but she was still sure she could feel the bruises on her back. Sud had a nasty temper, but she did have to admit that she had rather deserved it, and she _had_ known what was likely going to be coming her way after it all went down, but she felt that it was worth it. Her opinion of the Earthbender had been dropping for a long while, but it went into the negatives after Kyoshi Island.

All said and done, the "Boat Incident" was pretty enjoyable. She was even considering getting a job on a ship after she became a fully realized Avatar, just to spite Sud. The idea that the Avatar was doing nothing but managing ships was sure to drive the man insane.

She had made the mistake— at least, she'd thought it was a mistake, when she first made it— of telling him this about an hour ago, but rather than displaying any sort of anger, or at least frustration, he instead gave a sad sort of smile, and told her that they were getting tea.

And here they were, each of them clutching a cup of green tea beside two gigantic statues which had apparently been sentenced to an eternity of standing around and shaking their hands. Nini wondered why they had to have settled upon _that_ pose, as opposed to something more… _dynamic_. She wasn't asking for excitement, or anything, but they were just holding each other hands.

_This_ was supposed to be a major tourist attraction?

"No, no any longer, actually," Sud answered her. "It was originally in the Lower Ring, so that everybody could see it, and then it started getting vandalized, so they moved it to the Middle Ring, but even _that _was years ago, Nini. It's in the Upper Ring, now, and while fewer people are able to see it, at least it still _exists_."

"Who are they, anyways?"

"Fire Lord Zuko of the Clan Mu, and Earth King Kuei. This was made after the signing of a peace treaty which ended the Century Wars."

"How?"

"Easily," Sud said. "They took some paper, and some ink, and—"

"You know what I mean."

"Well, first off, you've got to remember that nobody really even knows how the wars got started. A couple of raids here, or there…" Sud frowned. "Really, it's pointless saying who started the first of the wars, or even who won it. Each of the wars lasted no more than two, maybe three years, and then a year or two later, the loser would start it up again. The Earth Kingdom wasn't as unified back then as it is now, so sometimes the sides got juggled around a bit, as various provinces sided with the Fire Nation, or sided against it, or decided to stay out of the conflict altogether."

"And then what? My teacher didn't really get much into the Century Wars… Said it wasn't all that important. Ancient history."

"And so it is," Sud agreed. "To make a hundred and so years a short story, we speed up to Zuko here. After his father's unexpected death, he had to deal with a bit of a takeover attempt by his cousin, but soon after resolving this situation he came upon a solution to the Century Wars which he felt everyone would be happy with. The Fire Nation took some ownership of some land— it's called the Colonies, with the islands being the Homelands, now— and did away almost entirely with the taxes it placed on trade. With the help of several brilliant engineers, new technological devices were devised, and within thirty years we had the train rails all over the Earth Kingdom, the steam ships, the transport tanks…"

"And that's it?"

"Pretty much. The last war to be fought was called the Red Rose War, made up mostly of people who _weren't _happy with the way Zuko had resolved everything."

"And they got killed, didn't they?"

"Pretty much. They put up a good fight, but they lost, in the end."

"You know, I'd think that if you wanted to make sure everyone accepted your brand-new idea for peace, it would be a good idea to get the opposition rallied together and then kill them off. You'd also remind the lukewarm people about what they'd be risking if they didn't jump on the ship. How about you?"

The Earthbender frowned. "It would be nice if you didn't come up with ways to insult the legacy of Fire Lord Zuko. With a few others, he unified the world, bringing an end to a century-long conflict." He shook his head. "But that's not why we need to have this talk, really. What do you know of the Air Nomads, Nini?"

"The Fire Nation wiped—" was about as far as she got before she stopped, seeing the rage on Sud's face.

"Lies, Nini. Once again, people trying to besmirch the good name of Zuko, and what he stood for. Would you like to know the name of what really killed the Air Nomads?"

Nini nodded.

"Ennui, and despair, and horror."

"Excuse me?"

"There was no genocide, though I can see how some might honestly believe it, seeing as how this all began during the outbreak of the Century Wars, but they forget that there was no reason to eliminate the Air Nomads."

"But then how did they… There's no more Air Nomads, right?"

He nodded. "That's correct. But they just… drifted away. One by one, two by two, ten by ten, they simply began to leave the Air Temples, or cease to return to them, and integrate themselves with local populations. Benders of two different elements, however, cannot produce another Bender, and so over time the Air Nomads, and Airbending itself, died out. The Sky Bison were already nearly extinct, and survived only because a major facet of Air Nomad culture centered around caring for them. And if you doubt me at all, then when you go to Capital City, in the Fire Nation, you can check out the locals there. One of the noble families has strong Air Nomad ancestry from just a little bit after the start of the Century Wars. You can see it in their eyes. Literally," Sud said, with a smile. "Only Air Nomads had eyes like them."

"Like what?"

"You know when you see them, Nini, but…" He took a deep breath, and sighed. "The Avatar Cycle is in danger of falling apart, Nini. If Airbending is not restored by the time that your successor's successor dies, there will no longer be an Avatar."

Sud shook his head slowly.

"Guide your ships, if you want, but you have a duty, a responsibility, to see if there are any Air Nomads surviving, somewhere, and if not, to see if there is a way to produce more. If you don't, and the Avatar Cycle is broken, then whatever happens to the world will be entirely your fault."

**xoooxoooxooox**

_Water Year 1181_

_Capital City, The Fire Nation_

"You ready, Hiashi?" the younger of the two Twins asked.

"As ready as I'll ever be," she responded, fiddling with the top-knot in her hair for a moment, and then she pushed open the door. Ever since the beginning of The War, the old robes had been supplemented by a set of ceremonial armor, covering the upper chest and the shoulders. Despite the term "ceremonial," however, it was perfectly suitable for even the most intense combat, and even the armor worn by the Twins— designed personally for them after they came of age, as was done for every member of the Royal Family— had its scratches and burn marks, though much of these, admittedly, came from training sessions and nothing else.

Hiashi shook her head as took she and her brother took their seats at a long wooden table, emblazoned with the symbols of the Fire Nation, painted gold and red, and across from them sat three men and the woman sitting on the other side.

_Azka of Clan Fukazi_, golden-eyed and short-haired, not quite small but certainly compactly build. Though Clan Fukazi had long focused on cornering the rice market in the Eastern islands, Azka's predecessor had worked toward exploiting a particular loophole in his final years, arguing that expanding into the Earth Kingdom shipping industry did not violate the Fire Lord-sanctioned monopoly on foreign trade possessed by the Ie Trade-Houses, since it was not, strictly speaking, involving any trade between the Fire Nation and the Earth Kingdom.

It was believed to have been his idea to begin the under-the-table trading with the Earth King.

_Chizato of Clan Anozo_, a short, slim-boned woman who was the most influential female in the _zaibatsu_ clans. Even as recently as twelve years ago, a few other minor clans had been able to retain a weak hold on the rails and trains of the Earth Kingdom, and it was Anozo Chizato who managed to step on their fingers and force them to relinquish that hold. Fukazi and Arai now controlled about half of that industry, while Anozo took the profits from the rest, and she considered it a point of pride that Clan Tegazu had actually been driven to poverty and beggary. She had every right to do so, considering the clan's lofty status prior to its grand fall. At fifty-two, her hair was entirely gray and her face was etched with wrinkles as if she were eighty or more, and it was not likely that she would survive another ten years before her body broke down.

Thus, according to that strange paradox which ruled that the metaphor of the brightest candle be applied to the citizenry of the Fire Nation, she was a most powerful Firebender.

_Izamu of Clan Goto_, whose clan controlled much of the shipping and land-based trade amongst the Easternmost islands of the Homelands, and also a good deal of the transportation between these islands and the Colonies. For a second time in thirty years, the stranglehold of the Ie had been given a bone-breaking blow, and Clan Goto forced its way into dominance of one of the essential sectors of the Ie market, nearly bankrupting one of the three houses. Under any other circumstances, the Royal Family would in fact have been overjoyed by such a situation, and would even have proceeded to help things along, hoping to turn "nearly bankrupting" to "completely bankrupting and rendering destitute."

Izamu was also a Firebender, like Anozo Chizato, but his skill was pitiful, and his raw power nearly nonexistent. A teenaged Firebender could have beaten him.

_Manabu of Clan Arai_, a broad-shouldered man with gray eyes, who had sensed an opportunity in Arai and married into it, despite the fact that Fire Lord Zuko had decreed that doing such would cause him to lose his place in Clan Lee— and, by extension, his status as a noble. If he could maneuver correctly, he could not only take advantage of a moment of weakness in the Royal Family to propel the _zaibatsu_— or at least Clan Arai— into the ranks of the True Bone Nobility, but then possess more power than he ever could have achieved, without becoming the head of Clan Lee.

He was, in fact, absolutely essential if the _zaibatsu_ wanted half of a chance of seeing one of their own become Fire Lord one day.

"Let's start off by saying, before you get too invested in this conversation," began Hiashi, "the answer is 'No.'"

"Now, now, what's the reason for this?" Manabu asked. "Don't you think that perhaps we might find something agreeable to all of us?"

"You are lucky that we have not sent Clan Hatamoto to break into your houses in the night and send you to the Boiling Rock. You are nearly treading on treason, and 'nearly' is far too much, when you already have committed treason."

"Erm, excuse me, Hiashi—"

"_Mu_ Hiashi," she hissed. "You've no right to speak informally to me. Another act of disrespect like that and we'll end this conversation immediately."

"My apologies." He took a moment to collect himself, deciding upon an alternate course. "Perhaps it is that Mu Hiashi is simply unaware for some reason that there is nothing connecting myself or any other prominent member of the _zaibatsu _to the aforementioned act of treason," Manabu said, resorting to the age-old approach of speaking in the hypothetical, and as if the subject were not there, to avoid a direct confrontation.

"Perhaps Arai Manabu is equally unaware of how much of a panic he was in when he learned that the Royal Family had made an investigation," replied Fudo. He closed his eyes, containing the curl of smoke rising in his throat, and exhaled slowly, making sure to let none of it escape.

"Such things are not the reason that we are here, however," Goto Izamu attempted to remind them. "The Royal Family seems concerned with some of our present dealings, my fellows, and it would be best if we concern them further by bringing up the mistakes of our subordinates. Though it was not you, Manabu, who committed treason, it is your fault entirely that your underling's activities were not discovered by you." He may have made a pitiful Firebender, but in matters such as this he was, while certainly not unparalleled, at least possessed of no small amount of talent.

He headed one of the four clans of the _zaibatsu_, after all.

"The silver," Hiashi said. "I think that is all I need to say. _Explain yourselves_."

They had known something was wrong from the moment they had received the summons. But, it seems, they hadn't expected _this_, and though it was over almost as soon as it began, there was a quick moment filled with panicked and frightened whispers and muttering. Except from Fukazi Azka, strangely enough, whose face merely wore a slight smile.

"Mu Hiashi," he said, "I believe that Izamu here put it best when he explained the nature of the problem we have with our lessers. Regardless," the man continued, bowing his head slightly, "we should accept at least some degree of responsibility for what they did. We are, after all, their employers."

Azka paused, and looked down the table at the other three _zaibatsu_, before returning his gaze to the Twins. "If Mu Hiashi and Mu Fudo would be so gracious as to allow this pitiful soul to continue, he might be able to explain the situation as completely as he understands it, though he is of course no more than an ignorant fool."

Fudo almost— almost— had to fight back a slight grin at the lengths to which the man was going in order to retain an appearance of propriety and respect, and he nodded at almost the exact instant that his sister did. "Permission is granted. Until you inform us that you are finished, not a single person here, save myself and my sister, is permitted to interrupt you."

"Thank you, my lord," Fukazi Azka said. "As you of course already know, certain of our subordinates were attempting to take control of a previously undiscovered source of silver. Treason of almost the highest sort, unmatched except by an assault on your august personages. Now, as this humble servant of the Fire Lord understands it, the majority of the manpower was paid from the coffers of the Clan Anozo, and indeed much of the higher directions came from an advisor of Anozo Chizato's."

The woman being implicated began to visibly panic, but a quick movement of Fudo's hand as she opened her mouth ensured that she shut it without making a sound.

"Now, what does this mean, that her chief advisor is in on this? Would it imply that she were involved with it as well? Of course it would, and yet…" Azka smiled. "The investigation I undertook failed to turn up anything proving a link, or even offering any suggestion of a link, besides the aforementioned." Chizato gave a sigh of relief, slumping back against her chair, uncharacteristically showing her full years, but she froze like a rabbaroo once again a moment later. "In the end, it is this servant's opinion that she still be chastised, castigated, for her neglect and oversight."

"Your… investigation, Azka?" questioned Hiashi.

"Yes. I had become suspicious of what may have been going on with some of those associated with the _zaibatsu_ after I chanced upon an unusual document, a copy of which I can provide to you after this discussion, or now, if you would prefer."

"Afterwards will be fine," Fudo answered him, "but if you had made an investigation, why did you not inform us of this information before we ourselves were forced to spend resources of our own?"

"Who do you think tipped off the Royal Family in the first place?" Azka asked sweetly, and what was happening suddenly became quite clear, but it couldn't be stopped now. Not by any of the _zaibatsu_, who had to merely hope and pray to Agni that they somehow survived past the day, and not by the Twins, who anyways had no desire at all do so. "But you'll never guess what else I found out," he continued, dropping all pretenses of humility or proper forms of self-reference.

"Please, enlighten us," Hiashi told him.

"But of course, my lord," slipping back into the role for a moment. "It seems that it was the shipping lines of Clan Goto which were a crucial factor in this treachery. The silver in the Colonies had to be moved to the Homelands in _some _fashion, after all, and as it turns out, the trade route possessed by Clan Goto was more than capable of serving this process. It is my personal opinion that one might want to further investigate said industry, in order to see if there is perhaps more smuggling going on."

Fukazi Azka paused, until Fudo gestured for him to continue with a wave of his hand. "Thank you. Finally… I do not know how to say this, but I have all the proof necessary…" It almost looked like it really was causing him anguish to put this into words. "But… I regret to inform you that it was Goto which was behind this, along with several high-ranking individuals in Anozo and Arai, most principally Chizato's advisor and… Manabu's wife."

"Excuse me?" Hiashi asked, not quite believing what she had heard, but it took a moment for the guards to restrain Manabu after he tried to reach across from the opposite end of the table and strangle Azka. Izamu merely sat there in disbelief, unable- or simply unwilling— to process what was happening.

"I mean what I said. The wife of our good friend Manabu here was a conspirator."

Fudo cocked his head. "What do you suggest we do to punish those responsible?"

The other three _zaibatsu _nearly fainted, forced to use their wildest creativity to imagine what would be suggested, as Azka took his time formulating a reply. "Anozo Chizato was not directly responsible, and yet her negligence and oversights were at least partially responsible for this mess. It is considered only fitting that Clan Anozo receive some sort of material penalty. Perhaps the Royal Family would consider seizing fifty-percent of the railway structure owned by the clan?"

"And the other two clans?"

It almost looked like Fukazi Azka was seriously considering this, as if he hadn't already decided what to say days, possibly weeks, ago. "My clan will take upon itself the expenses of a full investigation of the shipping lanes and traders of Clan Goto."

"In return for being compensated with ownership of such?"

"Please, one does not need to put it in such terms. We volunteer to take on the responsibility, and all which that implies. Punishment enough will have been given to Clan Arai once justice is dealt to Manabu's wife. I feel that there is nothing more which must be done there."

"And what _should _be done?"

"All those directly involved should receive the highest punishment of the Fire Nation, my lords."

Fudo looked at Hiashi. "Do you have any objections? No? Well, then," he said, turning back to the _zaibatsu_, waving one of the guards closer to take Izamu. "I must say that it is a little harsh in these modern times, but then again, Unbending is something which can only really be done on those who can, well, _Bend_ in the first place."

"And it would not be fair for the majority of those punished, who cannot Bend, if a lucky few got off merely with being stripped of the ability," Azka concluded. Of course.

"Death by fire it is, then. Azka, Chizato, Manabu, you are dismissed." Fudo and Hiashi stood, and as Fudo received the documents handed over to him by Fukazi Azka, his mind briefly wandered through the implications of what had gone on here. They had gone in thinking that the Royal Family might just be able to shut down the _zaibatsu_ entirely, but as it turned out, one of the four had been expecting it, _counting_ on it, _hoping for it_.

And they hadn't even gotten to the question of legalizing the silver mining, which was what this meeting was _supposed _to have been for…

**xoooxoooxooox**

_Water Year 1181_

_Ba Sing Se, The Province of Ba Sing Se, The Earth Kingdom_

In a field again, yes.

But not a lesson any longer.

Nini swerved to the right, narrowly dodging the blows of the twin hammers as they connecting with the ground, throwing up great pillars of earth. As her attacker advanced on her, she quickly backed up, keeping her left hand free as she twisted her right, pulling a wall of dirt out and pushed it forward.

The Earthbender held out his hands, letting the blow hit into him and crumble as he took control at the very last second, and Nini fell on her back to avoid the boulder which flew through the space where her head had been a second prior.

And there on the ground, sweating enough to drown a small nation and panting like a polar bear dog, she smirked, and slammed her palms down. As the ground rippled, a small cylinder of stone came up about two feet from the ground, and she dug her heel into the ground, dragging it through as she rose from the ground, a piece of earth pushing her up. Before the man could react, she knelt down and slammed the stone she'd created.

As her attacker turned away, dodging the anticipated assault, she spun around and slammed her fists down on ground and then clawed into it with her fingers, pulling back and driving shallow pits into the dirt as the area began to shake again. Nini almost fell over as the ground gave way, but she steadied herself, staying on solid ground as the earth began to lose consistency and her attacker fell through. Sliding her hand along the ground again before he could move his hands, dirt turned to stone, and the man was immobilized.

"You do realize that I could still Earthbend by moving some other part of my body?" Sud asked her, from his place halfway into a mass of stone.

"True, but from where I'm at, I could just as easily crush you into jelly by moving my hand, Master Sud."

Sud considered this. "Collect your bags, Nini. It's time for you go."

She smiled, and turned on her heel, almost skipping as she headed away.

"Aren't you going to let me out?"

"I thought you were an Earthbending Master!" she called back. "What was that you just gave me about being able to Earthbend even with your arms locked!?"

**xoooxoooxooox**

_Water Year 1181_

_Ketame, The Province of Xin Fu, The Earth Kingdom_

"Pass?" asked the man, a stocky fellow with a club. He was tapping it against his knee impatiently, and it was clear that he was just barely high-principled enough to not be wanting to use it right now. Had he not been talking to an old woman who could barely walk even with a cane, it was clear, he'd have been looking for any excuse to wield it.

"Right here," the woman said, taking out a piece of paper and handing it over to him.

"Bao Seng?" he read, and she nodded.

"What's your business?"

"My older brother married a Fire Nation girl a long time ago, and I try to visit his side of the family every few years. One of his grandchildren has a grandchild, now!"

"Ah, that's nice. It's a shame you can't visit them more often."

"Yes, thank you," the old woman responded, rubbing the liver spots on her face, and she took the pass back after he checked it against the list he pulled out of his pocket.

"You're clear, have a great trip." She nodded, and began to move on, heading up the ramp leading to the ship, but he tapped her on the arm as she passed him. "If you find yourself getting sick at all, talk to Shen. He's got some excellent stuff to help with seasickness."

Seng gave him a cheery smile and, after thanking him again, proceeded on her way. She folded the pass twice-over and pocketed it, then went below-deck to try and find her room, slowly plodding along at a snailsloth's pace till she came to the room Song had reserved and went inside.

It wasn't too big, but it was large enough for her. Letting her pack slide from her shoulders, Seng closed and locked the doors, placed the cane in a corner, and took out a bottle of water to clean off the marks on her face. After checking to make sure she hadn't missed anything— the make-up felt horrible, but it was all she could get on such short notice— she put the bottle away.

Giving a long, contented sigh, Gran gave one final look toward the door, and then collapsed into her bed.

**xoooxoooxooox**

_Water Year 1181_

_Capital City, The Fire Nation_

There was a knock on the door, and Fire Lord Azariya set aside his old Cat Owl quill, and sighed. "Come in," he said, and Iroh walked in. Good dependable Iroh, not at all as fat as his namesake once was for so long, but not quite as fit as the general had been otherwise. A bit of a burn scar along his neck also took a little bit more of the resemblance away.

"I've just received a letter, handed to me personally by the Minister of Military."

"Jozaon?"

"Kakcho," Iroh corrected. "Jozaon is in charge of taxes. Honestly, I'd think that you'd be able to keep better track of them."

"Right now, brother Iroh, I'm having difficulty remembering who _you _are."

"I told you to lay off the wine."

"And I generally do. I'm just getting stressed, is all. It's just stress."

"You've got nineteen years, brother."

"Yeah. Nineteen years of working myself up about—"

"You don't have to be afraid of thoughts, brother. We'll keep you straight," Iroh grinned.

"Yes, yes. I suppose I'm still just a bit shocked, even now. It wasn't just the peasantry and nobility that felt Father was immortal, was it?"

"No." Iroh sighed. "The Avatar is coming," he said, and Azariya shot up out of his seat, snatching the letter away.

"Okay, okay, nothing too bad…" He read it through again. "Talks back… annoying… won't shut up… Reminds me of Hiashi and Fudo in their less flattering moments…"

Iroh laughed.

"So her Earthbending seems to be coming around fine, and Sud is passing her over to us." The Fire Lord pulled open a drawer and tucked the letter beneath a stack of documents inside. He smiled. "A cake is the traditional welcome, is it not? Shall we send for a lotus paste cake, brother Iroh?"

"Five kernel cake, brother. Unless you have some secret desire to court her?"

"Whatever!" Azariya muttered, and he threw an inkwell at Iroh when his brother wouldn't stop laughing at him.

**xoooxoooxooox**

_Water Year 1181_

_Ba Sing Se, The Province of Ba Sing Se, The Earth Kingdom_

Passing by the immaculate tables populated by tea-drinking Pai Sho players— the game was always populated by them at these hours, the late night hours, when even the last meal had been finished, and the work of the day was as well— Lao made his way to the large man standing by the entrance to the backroom.

"Excuse me, sir," Lao began, "but I was told that you were _Nan_ Shen. Would this be correct?"

The man looked down, and laughed for a moment, his fat bouncing slightly, perhaps because of the timid tone Lao had given his question, or merely the content of it. "Of course I'm the _nan_, boy! There isn't a single man in this city who doesn't know my face. Which means, of course, that you're from out of the city."

"Yessir."

_Nan_ Shen peered down at him, but only slightly, for he was a rather short man, and Lao was rather tall for a twelve-year old. "So where are you from, then?"

"Tegedu, sir. A small village in the province of Omashu."

"So far! I hope you didn't travel all this way just to see my famous face in the flesh!" he barked. "So what are you looking for, then? I assume that you didn't merely want to be able to say you've seen the great _nan_ of the Shen family?"

"I was actually wondering if I might be able to get a job here, sir. I make excellent tea."

"Oh, looking for adventure in the big city, eh?"

"Not really. Just trying to get away from home, sir, and Ba Sing Se seemed like a place in need of a good tea-maker."

"Well, you're pretty young, but I'd be a mockery to my family if I didn't try you out. Tell you what, boy— Come back tomorrow, say about six o'candle in the morning, and make me some tea. I'll give you the range of the kitchens. If I like what you've got, you'll start working right away when we open up at seven o' candle. I assume that you can make things other than tea? We're not quite a tea shop till the afternoon."

"Of course sir."

"Well then, assuming that you pass muster tomorrow, let me congratulate you on your employment at the Jasmine Dragon."

**xoooxoooxooox**

The next day was quite satisfying, Lao decided.


	5. Preparations for Arrival

Well, hopefully, I should be able to do updates every week or two, now. I spent a lot of time writing stories for a portfolio for college, and it's only because said stories got me a nice scholarship that I'm able to say that it was worth letting _All the Myriad Faces_ slide to the back.

You can go to my Gepetto887 account at FictionPress and see the stories, if you'd like to read more of my material. I'll hopefully be adding another story there every week or two, since I'm taking some writing classes. PM if you're having trouble finding it.

_Review Points: 210 (40 left)_

**Chapter Four: Preparations for Arrival**

_Water Year 1181_

_Harbor City, The Fire Nation_

"Now don't forget that offer, Avatar," the captain said. "We're several hours ahead of schedule."

Nini turned to him for a brief moment, smiling. "If I ever need a job, I'll be sure to consider you." And then she took off down the ramp, running to the dock as quickly as her feet could carry her. Yue and La, but she was glad to be on solid ground. She loved the water, she really did, but… Perhaps it was the Earthbending lessons, she decided, absentmindedly lifting a few pebbles as she walked away from the ramp. Either way, she had a fondness for something stable beneath her feet.

Maybe it was simply a new appreciation for it. No doubt she would be longing for the seas again soon enough.

"Avatar Nini," someone said behind her, and Nini turned. A hatchet-profiled man was standing behind her, clad in deep scarlet robes. There was no decoration, but the deepness of the red and the quality of the silk made it obvious that— Oh, Yue and La…

"Fire Lord Azariya, I am honored to be in your presence." Nini bowed quickly, trying to do it in the Fire Nation style.

Azariya smiled, as his mind idly noted every little thing she'd done wrong. The straight hand and the vertical hand were switched, and the positions themselves were slightly off. Of course, the proper thing would have been for full prostration, not a simple bow, as if he were some mere noble or commoner, and yet… "Up, Nini,' he said, tapping her shoulder.

"Y-yes?"

Wonderful. The dear girl was panicking, it seemed. "There's no need for you to bow, Avatar Nini. We're equals, lords of our respective domains. There's no need for bowing among sovereigns." Azariya thought for a moment, and turned. "That said, the rest of us should keep in mind that we are not the Fire Lord," he said, smiling, making it clear that this was far from a rebuke.

Over the sudden shock of coming face-to-face with the Fire Lord— the ruler of a quarter of the world, dammit!— Nini finally noticed everyone else. There were traders and sailors walking around, yes, but staying a fair space away, and the only people within a few arms' distance were a slim-boned woman— features more rounded than edged, though she bore an unmistakable resemblance to the Fire Lord— and five men in red armor and masks with a three point theme, three spikes on the top of their helmet, three eye holes, and what looked almost like a spider-crow's foot where the mouth would be.

The Fire Lord's sister— Ursa, her name was "Ursa," Nini reminded herself— bowed in the same fashion Nini had, though much more elegantly, and four of the five proceeded to actually get down on their knees, though the remaining one simply stood where he was, looking around as he presumably kept an eye out for any possible trouble.

Azariya snapped his hand up for a brief second. "Enough. Rise." He returned his gaze to Nini. "Shall we head to the Palace, Avatar Nini?"

_Water Year 1181_

_Capital City, The Fire Nation_

As the Fire Lord and the armored bodyguards went further into the Royal Palace, Ursa motioned toward a side hallway, indicating for Nini to follow her. "Do forgive my brother for not giving you this discussion, Nini, but there's a lot on his mind, you see. I'm rather surprised that he had the presence of mind to try and calm you down."

"Sorry about panicking, by the way. I wasn't expecting for the Fire Lord to suddenly— "

Ursa chuckled. "I know, child. Don't think for a moment that I think any less of you for you, or that my brother does." She frowned, and gave a quick, light slap to Nini's back. "Straighten up, child. You're the Avatar."

"Yes. My apologies."

"And there you go with the apologies again. Don't apologize to me unless I gave you my 'angry face' look. Now, as I was saying, for as long as you stay with us— which will probably be quite a few years, you know— we'll be expecting you to follow the same hours as us."

"And what are those?"

"This whole country rises with the sun, and we at the Royal Palace begin to train upon waking. Then there's breakfast a short while later, which like lunch is received in our rooms and eaten privately. Then comes our various responsibilities, which for you will involve more training."

"Wonderful," Nini muttered, and she received another light swat, this time on the head.

"If you've got something to say, say it aloud and loud."

"Yes, Fire Princess Ursa."

"Simply 'Ursa,' Avatar Nini. My brother had a point when he said that you and he were equals, and though it'll do you good to keep titles in mind when dealing with the proud and haughty, we are neither. The _nobles_, on the other hand…" Ursa trailed off, smirking.

"But… I don't rule anything…"

"The Spirit World is yours by right, Avatar Nini."

"What do you mean? And can you drop the 'Avatar' bit, please?"

"Of course. You only had to ask. We'll give you some time to do as you please after lunch, but don't expect too much of it. My siblings and I eat—" Ursa suddenly cut off, grinning as someone came around the corner of the fall and Nini suddenly felt something push her from behind.

Head pounding— she must have hit her head on the floor— it took her a moment to realize that she was lying on top of a young man, looking to be about her— Nini gave a short yell and pushed herself away as Ursa chuckled quietly.

"Grandmother!" the other man exclaimed. "How— how could you…" It seemed that he was at a loss for words, and he settled for standing up and dusting himself off.

"Nini, you should really watch your step," Ursa admonished. "Kahchi, you should behave yourself around the ladies. That was really inappropriate."

"Watch my step? What do you— _He _didn't do anythi—" Nini stopped when she felt Kahchi tapping her shoulder, and looked over at him.

"It's really pointless, miss. It's my fault, really. I'd begun to forget to look around the corner before turning."

"Well, anyways," Ursa said, making no effort to mask her grin, "you should at least be introduced to each other if you're doing… _that_. Nini, this is Kahchi, my youngest grandson. Kahchi, this is Nini. She's with us to learn proper Firebending."

Kahchi's eyes grew. "You pushed the _Avatar_ on me? Oh, Agni…" he muttered, backing up against the wall. "I'm going to _die_…"

"That's nice, dear. Remember, the Royal Family frowns on bastards, so keep that in mind, will you? I think you can finish giving the tour to Nini, so I'll be going. Bye now!" Ursa bowed quickly and moved off before Kahchi could quite react.

"So… That's your grandmother?"

"Look, I'm _really_ sorry, Nini. Really, _really_—"

"Eh, it's fine. I think maybe I deserved it. I'm probably going to be doing the same thing to my own grandchildren."

_Water Year 1181_

_Capital City, The Fire Nation_

The Fukazi Estate was situated on a small hill at Hing Wa Island, overlooking the plantation of ash bananas which Azka's distant ancestor had used to acquire a foothold in the halls of power. From the ash bananas to rice, and some years ago Azka had begun to deal in the shipping industry of the Earth Kingdom, making sure that nothing he bought or sold ever touched Fire Nation hands, being careful to avoid treading upon the monopoly of the Ie.

The room in which he was sitting was not an overly spacious one, but it had an amazing view, giving a direct view of the root of Clan Fukazi's wealth. Azka chuckled. The root…

The door opened, held by one of Azka's servants, and Arai Manabu walked in, his face a mixture of desperation and heated fury. His exhaustion was plain on his face— Azka guessed that the head of Clan Arai hadn't had much sleep for a long while.

"What do you want?"

Azka smiled, and gestured toward the small, circular table he was sitting at. The table wasn't overly large, but Azka was rather fond of it. Not many things were carved from the trees of the ash banana, and so it had a rather distinct look to it, even if it _was _cracking slightly, demonstrating _why _the trees weren't used very often. Manabu frowned as he sat down, facing Azka— and, thus, the plantations, for Azka was sitting with his back to the window. The message carried by the view was not at all subtle.

"Straight to business, then? I could have implicated someone other than your wife, Manabu. The both of us know that her records were white as, oh, the common expression's wood ash, isn't it?" Azka smiled. "But I think _volcanic_ ash might be a better word."

"Quiet, Azka."

Fukazi Azka shrugged, still smirking. "So it's obvious to the two of us, then, that there is only one way this _terrible_ accusation could have been supported, no?"

"You did it."

"Yes. Obviously. And I could have done it to you just as easily."

"So then why didn't you?"

"Because we can work together, Manabu. Clan Anozo had a full half of the railways in the Earth Kingdom, Manabu. Now the Royal Family has half of those, while our two clans together have what remains. Furthermore, we're more than capable of pushing her out of Clan Anozo has managed to hold onto, if only we work together. While I have the shipping lanes to the Fire Colonies as well."

"Since the Century Wars, we have presented a unified front to the Fire Nation and the Royal Family. And you have destroyed that. How are we supposed to make one of our own the Fire Lord, whether in ten years or ten hundred, now that we you have stabbed us in the back, and done so in broad daylight? Ashes, Azka, do you have any idea what you've done?"

The small man began to roar, laughing. "Ashes, Azka. Ashes, Azka. Do I have any idea what I've done? Do _you _have any idea how _funny_ that is?"

"What are you _talking_ about? Are you _mad_?"

"You're not much of a linguist, are you? My name quite literally _means_ 'ashes.' And I admit a certain weakness for puns."

Manabu sighed. "You're mad. I'm trying to explain that you have ruined our attempt for the Jasmine Throne, and you… You're laughing at a _pun_."

"But I _didn't_ ruin it. If anything, I _guaranteed _it. We need to concentrate our resources. Clans Anozo and Goto are yesterday's news, Manabu. Give me twenty years, and they'll be more penniless than Clan Tegazu and their contemporaries became after Chizato had her way with them. Two decades, and we'll have the rice and the shipping in the eastern islands. We'll have the shipping lanes to the Colonies, too, and all but a quarter of the rails of the Earth Kingdom. Agni, think about what Clan Goto did to the Ie Trade-houses. We could finish the job, scrub the floor in a century."

"A century. That's a long time. We'll both be dead by then."

"So are you only in this for the short-term? The Ie took advantage of a momentary weakness, but let me warn you that the Royal Family as it stands will not be so vulnerable for a very long time, if ever. We will have to be in this for the long haul. The Royal Family has been playing us for decades, and if we're going to beat them, we need to look even further ahead."

"But why stab the other _zaibatsu_?"

"Let's say that one of us became the Fire Lord tomorrow. What would happen to the other three clans?"

"They would be elevated to— alright, alright. But then what about _us_?"

"Intermarriage. We have divided our fellow clans, and we will conquer them shortly. Now all that remains is for us to consolidate, and unify our gains." Azka smiled. "We should, of course, wait a few decades, until we've finished dealing with Chizato, and whoever is running Clan Goto now. One thing at a time. One thing at a time."

_Water Year 1181_

_Capital City, The Fire Nation_

Nini took a deep breath, and walked inside the room, noting the mat beneath her feet before looking up and seeing Iroh standing about five feet away, in the middle of the room, watching her. "When you're done looking at your feet, we can begin," he said, smiling.

"Y-yes, sir."

"Good. Did you like the cake?"

"What cake?"

Iroh sighed. "My brother can be rather forgetful lately. He was going to be sending someone to get a five-kernel cake. It's traditional, for guests." The man frowned, idly scratching the burn on his neck. "I'll send someone out to get one for you after this lesson."

"You really don't need—"

"It's only proper, Nini." Iroh was smiling again. "What would we be without proper etiquette? Don't answer that. Now, regardless of what position you may hold, whether you're a peasant or, well, the Avatar, your teacher is your superior, and a fellow student— or a fellow master, once you get that far— is your equal. So before we start, we must bow to each other, Nini."

She nodded, and took a brief glance at him as he bowed to make sure she had it down before repeating it after him.

"Good. Now, take a brief look inside your head. What are you angry about?"

Nini gave him a quizzical look. "Angry? I…"

"Are you not angry about anything?"

"Um…" She bit her lip. "Er… Not really. Back when Sud was training me, I suppose. He was always freezing annoying me. 'Lift the rock with your eyebrow, Nini!' Stuff like that."

"And you wouldn't happen to be still angry about that?"

"No… I mean, that's done with, right?"

Iroh nodded. "Yes. And it's not all that substantial of an anger, either… Nothing else?"

Nini tried to give a chuckle, but it was strangled halfway through her throat. "No."

"Ashes." Iroh rubbed his forehead. "Well, then, I suppose we'll go for—"

He leapt at her and delivered a punch which sent her flying back a foot before falling unceremoniously onto the ground.

"What was that for?" she asked, but Iroh only answered with a kick which she barely avoided. "Spirits, have you gone _cra—_" Nini cut off as Iroh grabbed her shirt, spun, and threw her again.

"I thought you trained under Sud! Are you telling me that a slow girl like you beat him?"

She threw herself to the side when a fist came flying at her again, still trying to process what was going on, and thrust her hand forward, only for the ground to remain exactly as it was. As she was pondering this development, trying to figure out why her Earthbending wasn't working— she knew that there wasn't enough liquid of any sort here to Waterbend— she received a blow to the face and was sent sprawling.

"Freezing…" she muttered, trying to get up, and rolled away from yet another attack. She gave a quiet yelp, though she wasn't sure if it was because a foot had just connected with her ribs or because her hands felt like they were burning off, but she went with it, and latched onto Iroh's foot.

Only a second later, the Firebender froze, and looked down at the girl, who was clutching at his ankle, eyes wide as smoke drifted up. "You can let go now, by the way."

Nini slowly nodded, and scooted backwards. "Uh…"

"Not as much as I'd expected, but…" Iroh shrugged. "Well, you made your hands really hot, that's something. I was expecting fire, but the important thing is that you've managed to start. Just a little bit more, and you'd have had flames sprouting up."

"What are you talking about? Is everyone in this family _crazy_? Your sister pushes me into another guy, your brother looks like he wants to cook me over a spit ever since I accidentally drank his tea—"

"He's entirely justified in that, although it _was_ rude not inviting you to have tea with us later."

"— and _you_," she continued, "_you _just started attacking me for no frozen reason at _all_!"

Iroh grinned. "I had a very good reason. You got angry, didn't you?"

"Yeah! Of course I— Oh, spirits, now I'm feeling really, really stupid…"

"To master Firebending, you'll need to draw upon your angry. You need your passion. If you're not furious, you won't be able to use the art nearly as effectively."

"So this whole country is full of angry people? _No wonder_ you're all nuts."

"We're just angry about more abstract things. Generally. Granted, some of us are angry because we stubbed our toe, or caught our wives sleeping with our brother and our best friend at the same time, or because we've been living in poverty for the past ten years while the rest of the nation is doing well-off, but in general, most of us are angry about less concrete, less personal things. We're angry about the way the world is, because it's not how the world _should_ be. We're angry about the injustice, about the corruption, about how everybody seems to get burnt by life, and the good people die while the evil ones prosper.

"So yeah," he finished, "we're angry, but we direct it. That's the secret to Firebending."

_Water Year 1181_

_Capital City, The Fire Nation_

It had started off with such innocent intentions, really. She'd been training for a few weeks now, and while Iroh was still telling her that she needed to be more aggressive to "channel the fire all the way through, instead of just a few sparks and boiling hot hands," she decided to ask if she could possibly just take a short break, and be able to leave the grounds of the Royal Palace.

Though she had been thinking that Ursa would have been more lenient, Nini was now wondering if perhaps she should have asked one of her siblings. Perhaps Hiashi. She was a cheerful sort, and Nini had a sneaking suspicion that she was drunk most of the time— nobody could be that cheerful all the time without _some_ sort of aid— but Fudo was nearly always with her, and _he_ certainly wouldn't have let Nini go off.

As it was, Ursa had thought that a walk in the Capital City would be a "wonderful" idea, and proceeded to lead Nini through the halls and snatch up her grandson, drafting him into the responsibility of giving Nini the tour.

The Avatar was beginning to wonder if Ursa was planning something, though at least Kahchi seemed as unnerved as she was, so if there was a scheme of some kind, he wasn't in on it.

"So on your left," Kahchi continued, gesturing toward a large, impressive building, painted red with white, instead of the usual gold, "is the Ministry of Civil Services. The Ministry has been in charge of the Fire Nation's education system for hundreds of years, from the prestigious Royal Fire Academy for Girls, to the most remote schoolhouse formed of slapped-together wood and run by a single teacher. It also serves as a go-between for the Royal Family and the rest of the Fire Nation, deciding which matters require the attention of the Royal Family."

Nini frowned. "Then the Ministry could rule the country, couldn't it?"

"How do you mean?"

"They're basically in control of what information reaches the Royal Family, right? Or to put it more precisely, what information reaches the _Fire Lord_."

"I don't suppose you've heard the story of Earth King Kuei and Long Feng?"

"No, I don't think so. It doesn't sound familiar."

"Long Feng arranged a situation very similar to what you just proposed. He made sure that only he had the ear of the Earth King, and having raised Kuei since the young man's boyhood, Long Feng was trusted without reservation. But upon discovering his servant's treachery, Kuei was only relearning a lesson we'd had centuries ago. For generations now, the Ministry of Civil Services has operated with the awareness that the Royal Family has other means of acquiring information, and that even _accidental_ misinformation, or the mere _appearance_ of duplicity will send everyone halfway possibly responsible on a one-way trip to Boiling Rock."

"Huh. So… What's the weather like here?"

"Well, I suppose you're lucky to be coming here around the tail end of summer, since I've heard that foreigners— and even a lot of Colonials— simply find the heat unbearable. With any luck, you'll be done with your training here before summer comes through again. Personally, the winters are bad, but according to the same people whining about our summers, we Homelanders just can't deal with a little bit of frost. _You _can, I'm sure, seeing as how you're from the South Pole, but I think those people are just trying to make themselves feel better. It gets _really_ chilly around the height of the winter season."

"Chilly," Nini echoed.

"_Really_ chilly."

"O-kay." Nini stopped. "So what do you do for fun?"

"Well, there's never a shortage of Pai Sho players when you're part of the Royal Family."

"Pai Sho."

"Well, there's also enough of us for two Kuai Ball teams, too, and—"

"When we get back, we're playing Kuai Ball."

_Water Year 1182_

_Capital City, The Fire Nation_

Three peddlers, with their various wares, standing at the side of the street. Three peddlers among many in sight. Only the nobility, technically, was allowed to live here, but there were places just outside the limits of the city, where these tekiya could live, and the nobility— and their servants— took advantage of the closeness of these merchants. One didn't always want to travel down to Harbor City to make purchases.

"Did you see the executions yesterday?" asked one of the three tekiya, an old woman, with a thick cane and innumerable liver spots on her skin.

The other two, selling ocean kumquats and sausages and odd stone trinkets together, looked at her. The man nodded, and with exact precision in his movement he picked up an ocean kumquat and handed it to a customer, then flipped his hand over to receive his payment.

"It was terribly shocking," the man's partner, also an old woman— siblings, spouses, simply business partners? The first peddler would have known, under normal circumstances, but hers was not the only company of tekiya near Capital City at the moment. "I heard that they were planning on assassinating the Fire Lord."

"Really?" The first peddler adjusted the smoked-glass lenses over her eyes. She had an extreme sensitivity to light, she would tell anyone who asked, and she needed to keep the light from her eyes when it was too bright. It would be very bad if her eyes were out in the open, that much was true. "Did you hear if they managed to catch all of the conspirators? The last I heard— That'll be four ryo," she said, suddenly switching to someone holding up a bottle of watered-down rice wine. "Thank you, kind sir." She bowed, and her customer went on his way as she resumed her conversation with the other two peddlers. "The last I heard, someone or another went on the run, to the Colonies. They're going to be trying to make it to the Earth Kingdom, where the other half of the conspiracy can keep them safe."

"Do you think it will lead to war?" the male peddler asked.

"What do you mean?"

"Don't you realize? They were dealing directly with highly-placed Earth Kingdom officials, weren't they?"

His partner continued. "The Royal Family didn't eliminate the whole conspiracy. They just executed the people responsible in _this _country. What about the people in the Earth Kingdom? What if the Earth King won't give them up to Fire Lord Azariya, and won't punish them himself?"

"It seems to me that the Earth King is in the Fire Lord's pocket. He's horribly scared, it seems like. First his grandfather dies, and then his father commits suicide out of despair. Now that was just wrong, leaving one's child to deal with the troubles of kingship." The first peddler shook her head slowly. Oh, here was another customer, and while she hid it well as she looked at the various wares being offered, the rice wines and the packets of dice and the small wooden toys, she didn't seem to know much about the different kinds of rice wine.

This would be easy. "This is one of my best," the peddler said, holding up a bottle worse than the one she'd just sold. "It comes from the cast-offs of Hing Wa. Not good enough for the Clan Fukazi, but still plenty good enough for most people, even many of the nobles here, such as yourself."

"I'm not a—"

"So, out making purchases for your master?"

The woman nodded. "Well, what's the occasion? Anything in particular?"

"A celebration. A minor family holiday."

"Your employer will love this, I assure you. And… a family holiday, you said?"

Another nod.

"I'll give it to you for eight ryo, how's that?" She sighed, frowning as the woman walked away with a smile on her face. How could anyone have been that naïve, to take a tekiya, a peddler, at face value? Well, there was a reason why these stalls were made to be collapsible at a moment's notice, and at the first sign of trouble, she'd have it broken down and on her back in the time it took for a spiderfly to snap up its prey. In the meantime, perhaps she could make a few more sales from passers-by, and she would just have to hope that they had enough sense to do some haggling, even if she still got them in the end.

"So where were we?" she asked, looking back at the other two peddlers.

"I believe you were talking about the Earth King," answered the man's partner. "Do you really think that the child is the puppet of the Fire Lord?"

The first peddler gave a firm nod. "I have to admit, I wonder at the circumstances of the deaths. If you ask me, the Fire Lord had something to do with that."

"But the boy's grandfather had a heart attack! There were no signs of poisoning, either."

"There are ways, there are ways."

"Maybe you could elaborate?" the male peddler asked. His face was hardening, almost unnoticeably. But the first peddler certainly noticed it.

"It… Just call it an old tekiya's suspicions. We sell and we scam and con, now come on. Don't you think that maybe the Fire Lord can play that game, show us the two-ryo coin and then move those cups so fast you can't find the prize? The Fire Lord can lift pockets, too, you know. I don't know how he did it, but there's something about this whole thing that makes me want to look for the angle, do you know what I'm saying?"

There. Let them stew over that. Let that little idea get out there into the big wide world.

"Sometimes, there are just odd situations."

"Yeah, now that's what we tell people when they realize something's up. We play the game; don't tell me you're letting yourself get played by another peddler?"

"Maybe you're on to something. Maybe. But maybe we're right, too?"

"It never pays to look at one cup and never see the other two," the first peddler said. "That's when they switch the coin between the two you're not seeing. Don't discount either of the possibilities, is what I'm saying."

"Fair enough. But perhaps we could just ask him?" the third peddler said with a sarcastic tone, grinning and gesturing into the crowd. There was a member of the Royal Family there, his status evident from the quality of his clothing, and he was laughing uncontrollably alongside a young woman. Foreign, she seemed. The two of them needed to lean on each other for support.

"Ha-ha," the first peddler said, speaking in a monotone. "Why don't _you_ go ask the Royal if his family is a scheming nest of viperhawks?"

The peddler began folding up her stall, figuring that it would be best to leave— discussing the Royal Family in a bad light certainly wasn't a good idea when the Royal Family was right there, not twenty feet away— and Gran walked away, hoping that she'd managed to spark at least some suspicion in the tekiya she'd talked to, even if it wouldn't bear fruit for awhile.

Unfortunately, she'd have to try again, for Azariya and Ursa were already quite convinced as to what the situation with the Earth King was.

_Water Year 1182_

_Somewhere along the western coast of the Earth Kingdom_

The waves crashed into the beach, and the water receded, and the waves came back in once again.

Chit was walking slowly, hanging far behind the other Air Nomads. He wasn't falling behind, necessarily. He was just keeping his distance. The talking and the noises of the ostrich-horses, and the laughter of children, and… Sometimes it was just nice to hang back a little bit, and hear only the ocean.

It was such a pretty view.

The waves crashed, and receded, and came in again.

He was getting married soon, once the caravan reached the Southern Air Temple. It was traditional, to do it at the place where Avatar Aang hailed from. Even the Air Nomads who didn't travel from the monasteries— most of them— would travel there. Still, that was still a few months on; there were many towns and villages, and cities, between here and the Southern Air Temple, and the Air Nomad caravan would be hitting every last one of them, telling stories and selling goods.

The waves crashed, and receded, and came in again.

Everybody loved to see the Air Nomads come into town.

Everybody looked forward to it.

It was always very exciting, both for the Nomads and the townsfolk they visited. Almost like a festival. Indeed, in some places, things were moved around so that they _did_ arrive just in time for a festival.

Chit probably would have continued along these lines for quite some time, had something not caught his eye, just barely in sight, glinting in the sunlight.

The waves crashed, and receded, and came in again, and as he looked for what he'd spotted for just a split instant, he saw it again. Something black, metallic, in the water.

The waves crashed, and receded, and came in again, and every wave threw it a bit closer. Chit walked, then ran, toward the object, and he was astonished to see what it was: A _jian_ sword.

The Air Nomad didn't know what to make of it. Every little bit of the sword was amazing. The black coloration, something which the Air Nomad, admittedly no expert in weapons, had ever seen in a sword. The complete lack of damage of any kind, even rust, as if he had dropped the sword into the water just a moment ago.

Indeed, if anything, it looked brighter and more perfect now that he held it up in the light, where any cosmetic flaws or rust surely would have been revealed.

There was, also, a symbol of a white lotus on the hilt. Someone must have really liked Pai Sho, but it was just as likely that Chit simply didn't recognize the heraldry.

He looked around, just on the off chance that somebody had recently dropped it— it was stealing if he took it and the person was _right there_— and then, satisfied that there was nobody he saw who he could possibly return it to, Chit took off to rejoin the caravan, and put the sword somewhere safe.

Just in case, he would keep an eye out for any rumors talking about a missing sword, but there was no point in not taking it if he couldn't find the owner.

And so events slowly went into motion, setting themselves up in anticipation for what was to come. As if the Passing was a magnet, drawing these things to itself as its day came ever closer.


	6. Discussions, Arguments, Much Frustration

**Chapter Five: Discussions, Arguments, Much Frustration  
**

_Water Year 1182_

_Capital City, The Fire Nation_

The walls were metal, and the only water in the room was running off their bodies as sweat, and she couldn't Bend air, and so there was only one possibility if she wanted to beat Hiashi.

"Come on, Nini! Push yourself! Faster, faster, faster!" called Fudo, providing commentary and yelling at her whenever she did something wrong. Which was often. "_Ashes_, Nini, hit where she's going, not where she _was_."

She spun, kicking low to the ground, trying to sweep Hiashi's feet out from under her to bring the woman down to the ground. All she connected with was air, though, and then she was flying through the air, chest throbbing where Hiashi's foot had been planted.

"Are you playing a _game_, Nini? Do you think that's what this is? Get _angry_. If you can't connect with her, use _fire_."

Nini focused on herself, trying to take her irritation and her frustration and turn it red-hot, like she'd been told. She could do this, she _had_ to do this. She wanted this to be over, she was tied of getting thrown into floors and getting covered with bruises, and every day getting beaten so hard it hurt to sit on her bottom sometimes, and she'd just stand for a few hours.

She was sick and tired of it all, and damn it all if it wasn't going to be her getting planted in the ground, but _Hiashi_.

Sick of it all.

She was about to explode from it all, and she thrust her hands out at Hiashi.

And a puff of flame was spat out, and then her arms were throbbing, as if something had hit them very, very hard, and with another sudden pain she was spinning, and she was slammed into the ground.

"You broke her nose again, sister."

"Do you think she'll move faster next time?"

"Even _I _can't connect with you, without Bending, sister mine. We both know what the problem is. She can't Bend this."

"Azariya won't like this."

"He won't like the solution, you mean."

"I'm saying it right now, you tell him. I'm passing that off to you."

"Don't worry, sister. I already have Iroh on the job."

"That's my brother."

"Which one, me or Iroh?"

It took her a few seconds to notice her surroundings again, and she hoped that she'd be able to get something for this massive headache that was coming on. By the time she dragged herself off of the ground, Fudo and Hiashi had left.

_Water Year 1182_

_Capital City, The Fire Nation_

It had been, to understate it lightly, an irritating day for the Fire Lord. All sorts of stupid little requests that for some reason hadn't been thrown out entirely, by somebody else lower in the chain. Azariya would have killed everyone in those chains of delegation, for forcing him to deal with these people, but then he'd have to deal with a lot more. There was trouble with the Dai Li, as well.

They were no longer the treacherous scum they were in the past, no. There wasn't any risk of betrayal from them. Raising them from birth, drawing the future ranks of the Dai Li from the children of the current ones, it reduced the chances of corruption quite a lot. But in the Earth Kingdom, some of them were worried. The Earth King seemed to moving away from the Fire Lord. He had acquired two new guards, neither of whom, despite all attempts to prevent a situation like this, were members of the Dai Li. They weren't even White Lotus members.

_Damn_ Bosco, whatever number it was now. Just by being a big fuzzy thing that could be hugged, the stupid beast provided some degree of solace and comfort for the boy Earth King, and comfort and solace kept him from being unbalanced too far when he got scared. The boy was exactly like Kuei in every possible way, except that he was just a tad bit smarter. He was doing everything he could, to escape the Fire Lord's web of control.

There might be another war, looming on the horizon. This would not do well, but if worst came to worst, he would know when war had become inevitable. It would be easy enough to use a few choice agents from the White Lotus to stage an atrocity of such proportions that even many in the Earth Kingdom would find it hard to fight for their country, or even believe that the Fire Nation was not entirely justified in starting a war.

But such a thing would, hopefully, not be necessary. Azariya did not enjoy war.

"Fire Lord Azariya?" Kahchi entered the chamber, just as Azariya was about the rise from the Chrysanthemum Throne, and he bowed deeply. Ursa, the boy's grandmother, was standing behind him, smiling wickedly.

Oh. Now this was interesting.

"You can rise, Kahchi. Please tell me you have something amusing to ask. It's been a very long day, and I'm in _dire_ need of entertainment." Azariya grinned.

A moment later, Azariya didn't know whether to be horribly amused or horribly angered. "_Whaaaat?_" He turned his gaze to Ursa, standing up and walking toward her. "I blame you. This is all _your _doing."

Her smile didn't falter. Not one bit. If anything, it grew stronger. Damn her. "Of course!"

"I know that this seems…"

"Seems _what_? Is this dull-headed foolishness inherent in your grandmother's blood? And _you_, Ursa! What made you think that engineering this situation could _possibly_ do anything but create a situation that would _blow up _in our faces?"

"Calm down, Azariya."

"Calm down? _Please_."

"Fire Lord Aza—"

"Cut it out with the Fire Lord nonsense, Kahchi. We are family, and there is no-one around. If I haven't thrown out your grandmother yet, after all the stunts she's pulled despite knowing better, I'm not going to throw a foolish teenage boy out of the Royal Family. Especially not when you're clearly a victim of my sister's manipulations. I'm older than her, and I daresay I've had times where it's been hard to not think she's being completely reasonable. _You_ didn't even get the chance to see that she was scheming anything."

"Don't you see how this situation helps us, brother?"

"_Helps_ us? How does this help us?" The Fire Lord paused. "Let's ask the boy. Kahchi, what will happen if there is some sort of disaster, and my children and I, and my grandchildren, and onward, are killed?"

"The Chrysanthemum Throne would pass to my grandmother."

"And her children. Tell me about her children."

"Azariya! Listen to yourself, brother. Kahchi is one of the youngest children of my second-youngest child. If something _that_ disastrous goes wrong, that it actually becomes half-possible that he could ever sit on the Chrysanthemum Throne, we have _worse problems than this_."

"And so we certainly won't need this one, too!"

"Uncle, sir?"

Azariya sighed. "Yes, Kahchi?"

"I have a younger sibling. And then you have three other siblings, all of whom have children and grandchildren. What if I were to be removed from the line of succession?"

The Fire Lord looked at him. "You would do that?"

"What are the chances of it doing anything for me, anyways? And if it does, then I certainly don't want to be the one to have to deal with whatever's killed off your line, and all my siblings and uncles and aunts and—"

"You can stop now, "Azariya said, almost smiling. "We're a large family, and we can't be here all day."

"And it'll keep her closer to the family, won't it?" Kahchi asked. "Where you can keep a better eye on her."

"I don't _want_ her closer to us!" he exclaimed. "Do you know what tha—"

"Brother, quiet."

"What?" he snapped.

"You're being selfish."

"Of course I'm being selfish," he hissed. "But that doesn't mean I can't be thinking of the greater scheme of things at the same time."

"Then why don't you do so?" questioned his sister.

"Even if I said it was okay, do you have _any_ idea how this would turn out? Kahchi, how do you even know how much you like her? It's been two months. That's _all_."

"You waited barely any longer to get _married_," Ursa said, grinning.

"That was a mistake born of youthful foolishness."

His sister grinned. "So now she's a mistake b—"

"You know what I meant! I don't regret it, but I got lucky. Father _never_ should have let me take that chance. I'm lucky it all worked out, but what if it hadn't?"

"Azariya, Azariya, brother of mine, we're not proposing that they get to work having babies now. People don't court each other when they're already ready to jump in bed and spend their lives together. They court to find out if they are."

"And the girl? Do you even know—"

"_Again_," Ursa said, sighing, "sometimes these things need to be _asked_. We wouldn't have those cakes, you know, if it weren't for the fact that it was a way to ask about these matters without having to be there to hear the negatory. But I've been watching them. Yes, I have, more closely that you'd like for me to say, too," she told Kahchi, grinning. "Is she thinking in these terms? Probably not. But we're breaking her nose and throwing her into things too much for her to spend much time to think about such things. She just needs to be asked, I think."

Azariya had an odd look on his face. "Was _Kahchi_ even thinking in these terms before you brought it up?"

She grinned.

"Actually, there _was_ a bit of an idle thought there, uncle."

"The boy just lacked the initiative to do anything about it," she said, still grinning.

"Now that's not true!" Kahchi countered. "I'm just sane enough to not bring it up, without my grandmother dragging me by the arm to see the Fire Lord and ask his permission the second I say I'm interested in her."

The Fire Lord sighed. "I will soon be departing in a few days, as you know. I will be gone for a few weeks. I'm sure that in that time, the Masters will be able to spare a few minutes to listen to this particular mess. If they do not object, neither shall I. But if they _do_ object, Ursa," he said, turning to her, "there is to be _no_ going to my wife. She's nearly as sentimental and romantic as you, and she'd never let me hear the end of it."

"She'd kick you out of the bed and wouldn't let you have any fun, if word got to her. I know."

"Actually," he said, smiling for the first time, "I know for a fact that she would break first. Now go, if you would. An already bad day has just gotten worse, so I'm going to spar with a few of the guards and sweat this all out. But Kahchi…"

"Yes?"

"No matter what the Masters say, no matter what comes of your relationship, if it ever comes to be, with the Avatar, you have no right of inheritance, Ru Kahchi. Not of the Chrysanthemum Throne, and not of anything else."

_Water Year 1182_

_Capital City, The Fire Nation_

"I'll say it straight out," Iroh said, sitting down at the table they had been having tea at that afternoon. "The girl doesn't have an ounce of talent at Firebending. I might go so far as to say she has some sort of _anti-talent_ at it. She's what, at the level of a six-year old child?"

"Less, I'd say," muttered Fudo, and Hiashi simply shook her head slowly, looking into her drink. Likely as not it was alcoholic.

"Is this really unexpected?" Ursa asked. "This is the first time in her life that she's been performing any amount of Firebending at all, and she _is_ from the Water Tribes." She shrugged. "Besides, we can hardly expect one of _them_ to have the discipline that any six-year old Fire National possesses. There's a reason why Grandfather Ozai trounced them so handily during The War."

"I think you're forgetting the Northern Water Tribe and Sinaliarpok," said Hiashi.

"What _you're _forgetting is that Nini doesn't have the benefits of hailing from that city." Ursa grinned. "At least _they_ have some of the rudiments of basic civilization. Even the Air Nomads had their four temples, for all that was worth when Sozin turned his eye toward them. The Southern Water Tribe? How can you have proper civilization moving around place to place without ever having something stable above your head even once in your life? There's a _reason_ why every other society in the entire world settled down to _some_ extent or another."

"Just wonderful. Why _is_ it that the past six Avatars of Water have come from the south?"

"Kuruk was from the north, if I remember correctly."

"He sure didn't act like it. Kuruk was probably switched at birth. Or the records were wrong."

"It's because the Spirit World has not yet forgiven us after, oh, nearly six thousand years," suggested Fudo, "and every fourth time Agni and his brethren send their gentle little reminder to not spill our father's ashes anymore, they send it in the most aggravating way possible? It just happens. Besides, the three Avatars of Water before that were from the north."

"And Hahn was from the south," Hiashi replied.

"Point taken. So all annoying thorns in our collective side come from the south, then. Are we agreed on this? Now perhaps we could get back on to the topic at hand? _What are we going to do with Nini_?"

"Train her harder," said Ursa, just as Azariya said "Thank you, Fudo. It's nice to finally know why we were meeting here now, since Iroh left right after asking me to come. I was starting to think that you all just wanted to have some tea this evening."

"Just forcing her harder isn't going to work, Ursa," said Iroh.

"What she needs is _discipline_. No fancy trick is going to help her out, except for extra discipline."

"She's beaten Sud in Earthbending. Don't you think that—"

"Sud is wonderful," replied Ursa. "I will not say anything to suggest otherwise. But for all his mastery of Earthbending, for all his money, for all his, yes, _discipline_, which the Earth Kingdom's citizenry does not lack, in the main, perhaps it is that Nini needs something more than just _common_ discipline in order to master her opposing element?"

"Just because Sud is not of old blood does not mean that he is any less refined than the next noble, Ursa!" cried Fudo.

"Any peasant can be _taught_ refinement," Ursa said, sitting straightly, "but the truly refined must have it in their blood, forged in the heat of tradition and the generations. Refinement is not simply knowing how low to bow, and to whom. If you've got _real _refinement, you'll get the gist of that even without knowing it. Maybe you won't know what to do, but other proper folk will recognize that you're making every effort to be refined and give proper respect."

Azariya sighed. "Okay, so you all think that Nini is performing horribly enough that all of us need to come together and figure things out. Ursa thinks that we need to just push her harder. Am I to assume that someone else has another idea?"

"Teach her Unbending."

"_Absolutely not!_" the Fire Lord half-roared, and the heat of the room rose for a second before he calmed himself down. "Does anyone have any _sane_ alternatives?"

"I told you he would react like this," Hiashi said.

"Of course you did," Iroh responded, his hands open and on the table. "I'll give you your six ryo after we're done here. But why did you think I just told him about this meeting and left?" He turned his head back to Azariya. "We recognize that it's a risky idea, brother, but—"

"_Risky_?" Azariya hissed. "Do you have _any_ idea how stupid you sound, bringing it up? Do you want another Hahn? Now _there _was a force as disastrous to our goals as any!"

"We're not going to be teaching her the full repertoire of tricks, Azariya," Iroh said calmly. "She only knows the basics of each Bending form so far, and it's not like we're about to propose teaching her how to Bend lightning."

"Oh, no, because Energybending would be just as horrible. Our father knew that that knowledge could _never_ be placed back in the hands of the Avatar."

"Then what other alternatives do you have?" asked Hiashi, taking another drink. "If we teach her the basics— the _very basic_ basics— she'll only be able to shift her chi around a little bit, no?"

"Which is _exactly_ what we need."

"Yes!"

"I was being sarcastic and you _know _it! It would be absolutely _horrible_."

"Honestly, Azariya, she's already bad enough. She has the Avatar State, after all. Unbending won't make her anymore dangerous. Technically, she _already_ knows it! She just needs to enter the Avatar State to reacquire it."

Azariya held up a hand, and lifted his fingers as he talked. "One: We don't know if she can enter the Avatar State. Both our father and Aang were convinced that it was impossible, because our dear suicidal auntie had ruined that when she killed Aang. Two: We are not going to teach her about the Avatar State, and without that training, she certainly won't be able to do much. Three: She won't even be able to teach herself, because we are already well on our way to fulfilling our goal of destroying knowledge of the Avatar State whenever possible, and relegating it to the fairy tales whenever not. There are some people who don't believe in _dragons and sky bison_ anymore, just because they've been gone for so long, and those are in the _history books!_"

"We were not going to interfere with the Avatar Cycle," Iroh said. "Father told us that. We will allow it to run its course, and if it happens to end with the passing of the Avatar of the Fire Nation, then so be it. And if it does not, we are not to trick the Avatar into entering the Avatar State so that we might kill him a moment later."

"So maybe it's running its course, and it is passing a little bit earlier than expected. Perhaps this is a sign from the Spirit World, and Agni himself, that the play is over, and it's time to go on to the next one, the one where we start moving out from behind the shadows."

"Or perhaps this is simply what happens to every single Avatar when it comes time to learn how to Bend one's opposing element! You _know_ it's supposed to be difficult. Besides, we'll be keeping a close eye on her. We can keep her under our gaze, and if we need to, we can kill—"

Iroh suddenly paused, looking at Ursa, and following her gaze to Azariya, slumped in his chair, and back to Ursa. "There's something more to this that we're not getting, isn't there?"

"Everything is really falling into place, is it not?" Azariya said. "Kahchi is… Kahchi is _interested_ in Nini."

"Ursa's grandchild?"

Ursa nodded, and Azariya continued. "It will, more than likely, all work out. They'll probably have such wonderfully adorable children, and we'll all make bets on whether they'll be Bending water or fire when they get older, even though we already know the answer. She'll be in the perfect position for us to kill her if she becomes dangerous to us."

He paused.

"I would prefer, even now, to simply not need her to die. But it would be that much harder if she were family." Azariya sighed. "Teach her. But it is you, Iroh, who will have to order her death if it comes to it." He stood up, and left the room, walking slowly.

"Is it just me," Iroh wondered aloud, "or do the Fire Lords have a habit of getting too close to the Avatar? Father was not so lucky as Azariya, to have siblings around him to keep him on the straight path. We'll need to keep him on it, no matter the cost, and do those things he is not strong enough to do. Even Azariya recognized that Zuko was too soft when it came to Aang."

_Water Year 1182_

_Telgong. Province of Gaoling, The Earth Kingdom_

Inside his tent, Chit took another moment to make sure that no-one was coming— but why would there be? He was the only one out here, at the edge of town; all the other Air Nomads were at the festival, trading goods and stories with the locals and putting on performances in exchange for good coin— and then he carefully removed the Black Sword from its place in the long, thin box he'd bought a few towns ago.

Lifting the Black Sword out of the box, Chit decided that he would need to get something better for it. The lock was good enough— though perhaps it _could_ be better— but it was almost demeaning, to leave the Black Sword in such a cheap thing. The only cushioning in the thing was the fabric Chit was slowly unwrapping and removing.

Taking part of the cloth, he rubbed hard at the sword, and made a mental note that he would need to buy some proper polish for the Black Sword. Trying to clean it just with some cloth certainly wasn't proper.

Chit ran a finger along the length of the blade, admiring its craftsmanship, making sure to be careful— a scar on that finger was eternal proof of how incredibly sharp the Black Sword was. When he had first tested the sharpness of the thing, he had pressed his finger up against it so very lightly, and it cut through as if his finger were no more than a stick of butter.

Staring into the sword, as he was doing now, as he often did whenever he was able to steal a few moments where he could be assured that nobody would interrupt him, he always his faint reflection to be so intriguing, so odd in appearance. But he wasn't ever staring at himself. That would be narcissism.

The Air Nomad has dreams, like all his kind. But lately, his dreams have turned to the Black Sword, which he finds more beautiful than any other object. He is no skilled appraiser, and yet he knows, he _knows_, that there is no finer piece of craftsmanship to be found below the heavens.

He shall have a son, and when his son becomes a man, it will be time to give the Black Sword to him. Chit finds the idea of letting _anyone_ have the sword— letting anyone _see_ the sword— nearly unthinkable. But for his son, it shall be alright, he thinks. There is some reluctance, now, even with his son unborn and unconceived, to consider passing the sword on, but there shall be something great— oh, how great and wondrous!— in store for the one who will hold the sword, and when it comes time, it will be necessary for a true swordsman to wield it.

Even were he to start now, Chit would not be worthy to carry the Black Sword to its destiny, and though he knows, somehow, that all which will be necessary will be to carry it, _still_ he knows that the right is not his.

This is what the Black Sword whispers to him, in his dreams.

And it laughs, and Chit wonders if he is mad, and pursues the matter no more, for the Black Sword puts all his worries to rest, when he gazes upon it.

_Water Year 1182_

_Somewhere in the north of the Fire Nation_

The journey was not one which the Fire Lord could make accompanied.

Not yet.

Twice before, he had been on this journey. Once, most recently, almost exactly a year ago. The second time, five years earlier than that, it was made with his father, who sensed that his time as Fire Lord was growing short, though Azariya himself tried to put off the belief as nothing but an illusion. He still would not, at his core, believe that his father would die, just as he would not— and the rest of his family would not— until Zuko finally gave up the ghost, and was burned to ashes upon the funeral pyre which his children had assembled by hand, as according to the old customs.

One day, he would bring his eldest child, his daughter Kaminari, now in her forties and with a pair of grandchildren— twins, it ran in the family— soon to turn eight. He would do so only once, when he began to feel his age growing in his bones, and it was hard to walk and mask the pain of doing so. It would be necessary, so that he could show her the path to take, and allow her to make the offerings to the Masters, and see the rituals that would be needed to be performed in their name and in Agni's. But he would have no need to do it for some time. He had many years ahead of him.

Azariya had a suspicion that the Chrysanthemum Throne somehow granted long life to the Fire Lord. Perhaps it was merely the sense of duty and obligation which stretched out their years, or perhaps it was a blessing from Agni himself, but it could be no mere fact of happenstance that as the Fire Lords continued on to the edge of a century of life, often surpassing that century, their fellow Firebenders succumbed to the scorching on their souls, and fell at such a comparably young age.

He did not tell anyone, but he had been finding it hard to walk, in the months before his father's death, and within days of his coronation, the pain had disappeared, and he had been spared the greater pain of having to explain that Zuko's eldest son would soon be unable to walk, let alone run a country and act as Grandmaster of the Order of the White Lotus.

Yet here, as he made the hilly climb, traveling far uphill along rocky, unforgiving terrain, he felt as spry as one of his daughter's children, and he no longer wondered how it was that his father had been able to outpace him so quickly when they shared the journey that single time.

They would be waiting for him, at the end of the journey. The servants of the Masters.

"Tloque Nahuaque, lord of the near and nigh…"

As the Fire Lord continued his climb, his long journey, he repeated to himself the many names of Agni, muttering endlessly under his breath. He would have to stop soon, for even the gifts of his high office could not stave away the ravages of fatigue and hunger forever.

"Ipalnemoani, he by whom we live…"

His countrymen may have forgotten the oldest ways of their ancestors, the ways which they first adopted upon coming to this land, in exchange for salvation from the flames which had forced them here, but the Fire Lord had not.

"Tepeyolohtli, heart of the mountain…"

Would not.

"Titlaucaucan, we are his slaves…"

Could not.


	7. Odd Developments

**Chapter Six: Odd Developments**

_Water Year 1182_

_The City of the Sun, Fire Nation_

"Agni!" shouted Azariya, standing at the top of the pyramid, with a bound man laying on the platform before him. "Today, we remember what you did for us, in preserving us from the flames that scoured the world. Even as the rest of our nation moves on, we remember, and we remember the price you asked of us, in return for our salvation. We remember still the prayers, and we keep you always in our minds, and we remember, too, the _offerings_ you asked of us.

"Agni! Your son stands before you today, with this honorable warrior, who has offered himself up to you. I ask that you accept him, and in death make him one of the Teo-micqui, and accept him into your hall, to be at your side forever. Zipaco," said the Fire Lord, looking down at the man, "we honor you for your sacrifice, offered willingly as it must be, and we shall add your name to the rolls of the honorable dead."

Zipaco remained still. The drugs he had taken were no doubt making it difficult for him to understand what Azariya was saying. The honor in the offering was in the sacrifice itself, not in withstanding the pain, and it was rare for a man to go through with it without something to cloud his mind. Azariya, on the other hand, had no such luxury. His mind had to be completely clear, so that his motions could be precise.

The obsidian blade was raised in the air, and with both hands on it, Azariya plunged the dagger into Zipaco's stomach, and sliced it open.

"Agni! Accept this sacrifice, know that we remember you still, and that we continue to serve you. Let us know that you accept this man into your hall, to be at your side, and guide him through the worlds of the dead with your light, so that his passage through them may be swift."

Another swift cut, and another, and Azariya forced a hand into Zipaco's chest, and tore out the man's heart, burning it in the fire of his palm even as he lifted it up in the sky, as Agni stood directly overhead, the noontime sun beating down upon Zipaco and Azariya.

And then it was done. Azariya turned in one fluid motion, and began his slow descent down the steps of the pyramid, bloody dagger in bloody hand, to remain so until Agni descended and night came upon the world. Two other Sun Warriors ran up the steps, past Azariya, to collect Zipaco, in preparation of the night. There would be a feast.

It was the final ritual, the final sacrifice to remain, over all these years, since Agni first appeared not merely as he did now, every day, but in flesh and in bone. As he would do so in future times, Agni took a woman to wife, to make the first to be of the Sacred Bone, and he gave the people of the future Fire Nation the rituals which they would have to perform in his name.

The time when the Fire Nation sacrificed its prisoners of war was long past. Agni did not require such things. Those days were unnecessary, for the time had since passed when the Fire Nation was forced to strike fear in the hearts of its enemies, that they dare not war against it, lest they suffer if they should fail. The other sacrifices, too, had faded away, each time with Agni's blessing, but this one had remained. A single man to be offered up each year, to be given to Agni and taken by him, to dwell with him forever.

An honor not even guaranteed to the Fire Lord.

It did not ensure that the sun would rise for another year. It was merely part of the bargain. The price which had been paid. A reminder, and one which Azariya was thankful for. It kept things in perspective. Every year, a man died at his hands. Some prices had to paid, though they were terrible.

But now, he had to meet with the Masters, those great serpents, who had taught his people the art of controlling the fire which had ravaged the world so long ago. He did so dearly hope that they would agree that his siblings were mad, and perhaps even offer an alternative means of fixing the current problems with Nini. Not that he had any delusions as to whether or not they'd agree with him on the point of Kahchi's intentions. Ran was as horrible in matters like this as Ursa, and she had a particular talent at making Shao see her side of things (or, alternatively, at making Shao simply too tired to press the matter any further).

**xoooxoooxooox**

_Water Year 1182_

_Ba Sing Se, Province of Ba Sing Se, Earth Kingdom_

"Lao, boy," called the NanShen from across the old teahouse, after the last customer had exited, and he had locked up the door.

"Yessir?"

"Come here, boy. Put that tray and dishes down, and come here," he said, and Lao joined him at the small table. "How long have you been working here, boy?"

"Nearly two years."

"And how old are you?"

"Fourteen."

"Where are you from?" Lao opened his mouth and began to say something, but Shen cut him off. "I know where you're from, just like I know how long you've worked here. It would have been rather hard to forget that last one. I just want to hear it from you."

"Kyoshi Island."

The _nan_ was silent, apparently thinking about this.

"Your… great-grandmother was one of the Kyoshi Warriors?"

It was a moment before Lao responded. "Yessir. Why?"

"Just interested in my employees, boy. I like learning about you." Nan Shen paused. "You came all this way from Kyoshi Island, and managed to avoid getting killed. That's quite an accomplishment, even in these days. You were only twelve then, after all."

"Yessir?"

Silence.

"Koko's Lament. Samu. The Hale," Shen quickly clipped off, and he was silent again, carefully examining Lao's face.

"Sir?"

"None of that is familiar to you?"

"Nosir."

_So the old woman hadn't taught him anything. That's good. _He was about to ask something else, but stopped. _He wouldn't know that. Best not to even ask. _"You're doing a good job, boy," said the _nan_, as he got up. "Consider yourself free, tomorrow. Come by tomorrow for a free bite to eat, go see the sights. You deserve some extra time off. Make sure you pop by after everyone clears out for the night, too, tomorrow. We'll have a bit of tea, and you can tell me what you saw."

Lao took a moment to respond. "Yessir. Thankyousir."

"That's my boy," said Shen, walking away. "Who knows, a few years from now, you might be managing one of my tea shops."

**xoooxoooxooox**

_Water Year 1182_

_Capital City, Fire Nation_

"Your family is all crazy," Nini said, leaning back in her chair. "No offense, of course."

Kahchi chuckled. "None taken, of course. We might all be crazy, but we don't take offense at truth, especially when it's clear as glass."

"Smoked glass? That's not really clear. Kinda hard to see through, actually."

"_Clear_ glass, Nini."

"I suppose that makes more sense." She let the chair slam back down onto all four legs, and reached over to the center of the table, and grabbed a few purple berries from the bowl.

"You keep on leaning on those legs, and somebody's going to come along and knock them from under you."

"I shall take these opportunities when I can take them," replied Nini. "I've been driven half to death by all these proper etiquette courses your relatives have been giving me."

_Because it was preferable that the Avatar not be an uncivilized peasant girl_, Kahchi thought, but he certainly didn't say it. Besides, she was actually incorporating a lot of it, even if Nini didn't even realize it. Granted, she may have given Ursa a gift clock, but the fact that she'd gone out of her way to do so was, in its own way, proof that she knew not to do so. It was also a sign that, perhaps, the etiquette courses could be lightened up a bit.

"It could be worse," Kahchi told her. "Just think, there were times when you would have thought that it was possible to Bend dead languages and obscure trivia, with all the scholarly study that would be considered part of the Avatar's standard curriculum. Now, you have Bending and, well, your books, but if you went behind on that, they'd make sure to enforce your studying."

"Don't forget that frozen etiquette."

"Come on, do you want to start a war because you committed a faux pas?"

"No, but I'd also prefer to not have to be in a world where it was _possible_ to start a war just because I made a mistake."

"Little things add up. Just by talking right now, we've probably set off little chain effects that will, a few dozen centuries from now, start and end a hundred different wars, as our conversation gets us to act in particular ways which then get other people to act in certain ways, and, well…"

"Oh _my_. If just _talking_ would do that, I positively _shudder_ to think of what would happen if we were to… Aheh…" She turned red a little bit.

"What?"

"Heh… Never mind. So, what do _you_ do all day?"

"Politics, histories, languages, etiquette, flute, calligraphy, that sort of thing. I'll be sent out to govern some island in the Fire Nation, in a few years, most likely."

"Why?"

"Who can be more trusted than a man of your own bones? The Royal Family has always appointed its own in positions of power. Only when they deserve it, of course," Kahchi quickly assured her. "We don't practice nepotism—"

"— and it isn't nepotism if you're qualified," Nini said, finishing the old saying. "What's with this thing about bones, by the way?

"They're what make you who you are, Nini. When you're dead for a hundred years, your blood is long gone. But your bones…" Kahchi nodded slowly. "In the Dragon Bone Catacombs, we have the remains of Fire Lords dating back to when the tradition first started."

"The Dragon Bone Catacombs?"

Kahchi was silent for a minute. "Beneath the Capital Temple. I'll take you there, sometime. The Fire Sages will want to clear you, first, even though you're the Avatar— they would force the _Fire Lord_ to wait for clearance, if they thought they could get away with it— but it won't be a problem, in the end."

Nini threw another purple berry in her mouth, and reached for a mirror after, to see her tongue.

**xoooxoooxooox**

_Water Year 1183_

_Jan Ko, Fire Nation_

"Look at this!" shouted the Old Man, pointing frantically at his chair. He deserved the name. He was positively ancient, probably more than a century old, but his mind did not suffer for it and, if anything, only grew keener as time passed.

Jeko looked at it, arms crossed. So it had wheels… "I don't get it. What's so important?"

The Old Man produced a long stick with a hollowed-out half sphere on one end, and pushed the other end against his desk, sending him flying past desks and worktables. The rubber end was slammed onto the ground, and the Old Man stopped immediately before tearing it off and pushing the wooden end off another surface, and in the space of a minute he had launched himself from a variety of places, with his chair spinning the whole time.

"Do you see? Look how quickly I moved! I daresay I could beat you in a race! Not bad for a man with only one leg, eh?" he asked, gesturing to the charred stump. Not that the explosion had really damaged him; his legs hadn't been useful for longer than Jeko had been alive. "I call it the rolly-spinny chair."

"Yes, but can you get down the stairs without a mechanical lift yet?" Jeko responded, smiling. "So, is this your only invention as of late?"

The Old Man shook his head quickly. "No, no. Zaki! Come show Jeko what we've been working on lately!"

There were quite a few people in the building, tinkering with small machines or scribbling on paper, and one of the latter sort looked up, putting down his quill. "Zaki is dead, sir. Four months ago. The less-explosive blasting jelly wasn't."

"Aziru?"

"A bit more than a week ago, sir. The blue fever cure didn't. He didn't exactly die, so I guess it was a cure, technically, but he's paralyzed on his left side, and has trouble remembering anything past his eighteenth birthday."

"Doko? I _know_ he's still around. I talked to him just yesterday."

"Nearly a year ago sir. The new steam engine's improved safety features weren't, as he found out during the first test. You've been calling Buchi by Doko's name. Not that Buchi is here, either," said the man, after a slight pause. "He left last week, before he was rendered completely incapable of reproduction, rather than just halfway. The fragmentation bomb detonated early."

"Oh. Well, anyways…" The Old Man trailed off, spying an old schematic half-covered by other papers, and immediately began making markings on it.

The other man sighed, and walked over to Jeko. "Nice to see you again," he said, and they began walking outside the building. "I do apologize for the Old Man. He's stopped taking the medication which the Royal Family's physician prescribed for him, to settle his mind."

"It's quite fine, Zan. To be quite honest, we aren't really too concerned with whether or not he produces anything. Surely you've noticed that nothing has been introduced in the past few decades?"

"Oh yes," Zan acknowledged, "although we continue to tell the Old Man stories about how his inventions are revolutionizing the world. I can't figure out if he wants to beat his father, or live up to his work."

"Just keep him here," Jeko said. "This was all really quite unexpected. We've never known of a wonder-maker who wasn't celibate. At least he hasn't followed in his father's footsteps all the way, and expressed any desire for anything that might result in children. It's bad enough that one or two of these people pop up every few generations. The last thing we need is for them to start breeding, and producing even more of themselves."

"We'll make sure to keep him contained."

"Good. Good." Jeko paused. "It's not like we're really doing anything bad, after all. He's happy, isn't he?"

"And going slowly mad."

"But he's _happy_, in his madness, and besides, even his father was starting to lose it, toward the end. It's part of being a wonder-maker. You're doing good, Zan. Keep it up. Can I have the latest?" Jeko took the rolls of paper and stuck them inside his coat, then walked back the way he had come.

**xoooxoooxooox**

_Water Year 1183_

_Capital City, Fire Nation_

Azariya shuddered, walking inside from the rain, and handed his cloak to one of the servants who had run up. "Get my siblings," he ordered.

"They're already waiting for you in the—"

"Good, good."

It was only a short walk there, but he took longer than he needed to, walking as slowly as he could without actually stopping. He pushed open the doors to what they liked to call the sitting room, where the rest of the Family was already sitting around the table.

"What did the Masters say, Azariya?" asked Hiashi, drinking what was no doubt something alcoholic.

"Not even a 'Welcome back, brother'?" Azariya sighed, and took the empty seat between Ursa and Iroh. "They said 'Yes' to both matters, although Shao needed a bit of convincing from Ran when it came to the matter of Kahchi and Nini. They request that we give her as thorough a grounding in Unbending as is necessary, and have pointed out that if she actually joins our family, it will be far easier to keep an eye on her, and make eliminating her a much easier task." Azariya paused. "From a standpoint of mere effort, yes, but…"

"You won't have to do anything," Iroh promised. "I already agreed to that. You won't even have to give the command."

"So, I suppose I should be telling Kahchi that he needs to get the girl a cake, then?" Ursa asked brightly. "_Now's_ the time for a lotus paste cake."

"If you weren't family, I would kill you, sometimes," muttered Azariya.

"I love you too, brother. Fudo? Hiashi? Anything you'd like to say? You're awfully quiet over on your side of the table."

Fudo looked over at his twin, still sipping from her cup of alcohol, and then returned his gaze to Ursa. "I second Azariya."

"I need to go into town to get some more alcohol," Hiashi said, and she stood, bowed to everyone in turn, and left.

"Is she still—" Azariya started to say, and Fudo nodded. Azariya looked at the door, left open from Hiashi's passing. "You're all burning out. Except for her. Is it the alcohol or the dreams that keep her going, I wonder."

"Some people just don't know when it's time to die," Fudo said slowly. "I suspect that she'll be one of them. We've still got a good decade or so left, though. Most of us, anyways."

**xoooxoooxooox**

_Water Year 1183_

_Makapu Village, Province of Gaoling, Earth Kingdom_

The fox-faced girl struggled to keep calm, tending to the sick man. For the last day, he hadn't responded to her at all. The people in the village had abandoned him, but she wouldn't. She took the rags off his forehead, and put them aside before reaching into the bucket near his bed and taking out a new cloth to put on him. The fox-faced girl would have to clean the other rags soon. She was running out.

She took one of the pills she'd prepared, and got him to force it down, although it took more effort today than it had in the past. He hadn't woken up at all. But she wouldn't stop. She had to make him better. It was her job.

He would get better soon. She was sure of it. She was sure of it even when the villagers came inside the small hut to take the old man away, to place him in his coffin and place him in the ground, as they did in the Earth Kingdom.

That wouldn't be the end of it, though.

**xoooxoooxooox**

_Water Year 1183_

_Capital City, Fire Nation_

"Nini?"

The girl looked up from her book. It was Iroh.

"Yes?"

"We've decided to change tactics with your lessons."

Thank the spirits. She was tired of getting thrown into walls. Although the new strategy would probably involve getting thrown in a vat of boiling oil or something equally annoying.

"Yes?"

"Come along, Nini. Back to the sparring floor."

"_Wonderful_."

**Xoooxoooxooox**

Iroh sat down, and motioned for Nini to do likewise. "There's another method of Bending, far more restricted, and taught only to a select few. It's called Energybending, and involves Bending the chi inside a person, rather than any element outside in the world. Its usual use, in these days, is as a form of punishment, delivered by specially trained members of Clan Hatamoto. We call them Unbenders."

"Was I not going to be taught this before?"

Iroh shook his head. "It's not necessary, under other circumstances, and it's more important that you master the actual elements, than Energybending. Your predecessor knew something of the art, but merely as a curiosity. You would have been free to study it after you finished your other training, too, just as you would be free to go more in-depth with any of the other Bending styles, but it's not something which, ordinarily, you _need_ to learn, and the longer you take to learn a Bending style, the harder it is. Most children, after all, receive most of their training in childhood. You're already nineteen years old, and you still have both Firebending and Airbending to _master_, and _that_ isn't something that most people do for _quite_ a long time."

"This is all very rushed, isn't it?" Nini said slowly. "My training, I mean."

Iroh thought for a moment. "Not quite. There's a bit of a difference between the sort of mastery of an element that you have, and that someone else has. Even with Waterbending, there's still a lot more that you could learn. It would be very nice if we could convince people to use more precise terminology, but in this matter, it's more… We are attempting to make you _highly competent_, shall we say, in each of the four elements. Better than most Benders, perhaps, but certainly not even close to the skill demonstrated by someone who has studied a single Bending style for decades on end. When you move on to Airbending, don't think you're equal to the Fire Lord, or anywhere close. Any one of my siblings, or myself, could still do short work of you if we had the mind to, especially since we'd never fight you unless we'd managed to arrange the situation on our terms, whether you knew it or not." He paused. "Keep that in mind. If you have a choice to fight, don't, unless you've already manipulated the situation to your advantage."

Nini grinned. "So why am I learning Energybending now?" she asked, and shook slightly a second later. Iroh had touched a finger against her forehead, and she had received a very… a very odd feeling.

"The problem with your Bending stems from the fact that you're a Waterbender, no? You are a Waterbender before you are the Avatar, and Bending is something that comes from your spirit. The fact remains that your spirit is not exactly… optimized for Bending fire." Iroh smiled. "So what we are going to try and do is teach you how to manipulate the energy within you, so that you can better direct it when the time comes to Firebend."

"What if I can't do _this_, either?"

"Energybending is the most natural thing in the world. It was the very first Bending form, and it was used to produce the other forms. All we're going to do is repeat the process. Whereas the first Firebenders needed to have their energy Bended in a completely new way, most of the work is already done for you. We just need to clear out some of the rubble, as it were."

Iroh grinned. "Don't worry. We should be done with this in just a few weeks, even if you're completely horrible at it and don't have any talent for Energybending."

**xoooxoooxooox**

_Water Year 1183_

_Jang Hui, Fire Nation_

The old woman sat cross-legged at the side of the docks, looking into the river, where she could see the painted face of a young woman.

"I'm getting worried," muttered Gran. "He's becoming angrier all the time. He actually yelled at me, last time we talked. That's never happened before. I didn't know he was capable of losing his temper."

Silence, at least to anyone who was listening in.

"No, I don't know what he's doing right now. No, I don't even really know who he is. He's shown up a few times in the past, before Nini showed up, but he only started regularly showing after she came. He would ask about how she was doing. Now, we're trying to keep her safe. But he's getting angrier. Something bad is happening, and he's not letting me in on it."

Gran sighed. "Do you really think so? What… What's going on, anyways? Do you have any idea?"

She shrugged, a minute later. "I don't think so, to tell the truth. Something horribly bad is going on, though. I've… I've heard _some_ things. Little things. The Royal Family is threatened. Bad things have been happening to the zaibatsu. Lots of power is changing hands, and I'm a bit worried that whoever ends up with it all in the end isn't going to be particularly nice about their new acquisitions."

The old woman nodded. "That's true."

Silence.

"No, no… I'm afraid they're all dead. Even him, yes. He was the first. I'm taking… I _was_ taking care of his great-grandson." Pause. "She drowned, or was killed in an explosion. We're not sure." Pause. "We're not sure about him, either. He just… collapsed. Old age and old injuries did him in, I suppose." Pause. "I know. I suppose I'll be getting done in soon enough, myself. I know you can't leave here, but… If Lao ever happens to come this way, will you keep an eye out for him?"

Silence.

"Thank you. No, I don't think he'll be able to see you. He's not…" Gran chuckled. "He's not really like that. But he's a boy still, really, so who knows, in the end? Maybe he'll surprise me."

Silence.

"I'll keep that in mind. Thank you for all your help. Yes. I'm having bad dreams. I think something terrible is going to happen, but something terrible is _always_ going to happen, isn't it? It's just a matter of _when_. Well, when you put it that way… No. I don't think anything particularly bad is going to happen soon. I just don't like the thought of it happening at all. At _any_ point. Especially _that_."

She sighed. "I see a young woman, like Nini, but not. She's dressed in the clothing of the Fire Nation, with the crown of the Fire Lord on her head, and there is something terrible at her side at night. It is dark and blurred, and I feel as if it is not that it doesn't have shape, but that I don't want to see what it is. The world is a dark place, in my dreams, something to make even Ozai afraid, his already terrible vision twisted even further, far worse than he could have made it. And the woman in my dreams will never die, not until the world itself does. It might not happen, but I don't like that there's even a chance of it."

Silence.

"I can hear him coming, too. Thank you for the warning, but I don't need it. He's my friend, even if he's getting a trifle angry now. And who can blame him for that, with the situation being what it is?"

**xoooxoooxooox**

_Water Year 1183_

_Chin Village, Province of Gaoling, Earth Kingdom_

"You're obsessing over it," said Gan, looking disapprovedly at the Black Sword, which lay before Chit as he in turn sat cross-legged in his tent, looking up at his old friend.

"I'll be honest here, and instead of saying that I don't know what you're talking about, I'll admit that I do, but say that you're blowing the situation awfully far out of proportion. I know I'm spending a lot f time with the sword, but it's very important."

Gan scowled and gestured angrily at the Black Sword. "All you do is clean it and stare at it, every chance that you get. You don't even pretend that you don't prefer that… that _thing_ to your own wife. In the past five months, you've actually slept with her how many times? A grand total of three."

"How would you know, Gan?" challenged Chit. "I have to say, we're not as noisy as you and your own wife are."

"No, but even if most problems should be settled discreetly, anyone would have a right to complain to her friends about the fact that her husband loves an inanimate object more than her. I swear, it's a damned good thing that that blown thing doesn't have a _hole_, itself! Do you think we haven't noticed how… how…" Gan sighed. "She just _moves_, Chit. She's barely any spark in her."

"If she can't deal with anything less than an orgy every night," snapped Chit, "then what is she doing with us?"

"Perhaps you're getting a bit confused, here. 'Three' is not a lot. In this case, it's less than once a month for nearly half a year. And according to her, you barely pay any attention to her when you're doing it. Which is basically the whole problem here, Chit. You're not paying any attention to her. At all. You haven't so much as exchanged twenty words in the same conversation for almost a month."

"It will sing, one day."

"What?"

Chit's face had lost all expression. "This sword, the Black Sword, it will sing one day. It shall slice through the air, and the Black Sword will sing. My son shall be the greatest swordsman in the all the world, and wherever he goes, the black Sword will travel with him. He shall never draw it in battle, though, but will instead keep it safe for its true master, and in the day that its true mater receives it, all the old world will be burned away, and a new, pure one will be born from the ashes, free of darkness and corruption and lit by a wonderful new sun."

"Chit, what is _wrong_ with you?"

"The Black Sword speaks to me," replied Chit. "It speaks to me, and whispers into my dreams, showing me the path which I must take."


	8. And the Years Go By

So... Yeah. Another update. I apologize for the massive wait. I'm definitely going to refrain from posting the next Book until I'm all done with it. I'm starting to wonder if maybe I should have waited until I was done with Books 2-4 before posting any of them, since _The Aftermath_ is _kinda_ stand-aloney, but anyways... I hope to get through these books by this time next year. I should be back at update-a-week schedule in a week or three.

Also, a few questions which have been asked of me, and which I've answered, but think that others might appreciate seeing explained.

_I'd like to know what's up with the fox-faced girl, since that seemed a bit random._

The fox-faced girl, interestingly enough, will appear again in this chapter. It should become apparent within a few more of her appearances. I'm sorry that I can't even hint at it, though...

_And I'm very curious about these 'air nomads.' Who exactly are they? What do they do?_

The 'new' Air Nomads basically caravan about, going from town to town, trading goods and making performances for money. Unlike with the original Air Nomads, they're far outnumbered by the ones who live in the temples all the time, who generally try to produce as much of their own stuff as possible, and study, and, as Aang would have put it (had he not considered it so rude and unkind that he never really even thought it to himself), 'playing at being Air Nomads.'  
There's also a small tradition in the Northern Air Temple, made up of a handful of of Earthbenders who use a more Airbender-y style, as taught to them by Malu, who was wouldn't stop bugging Aang until he taught her. Incidentally, I was checking The Aftermath, to double-check her name, and I came across this little tidbit.  
"He watches Malu teach the children for a few more minutes, and then moves on. He had already lived through the Red Rose War. He didn't need to hear about it again... Is it just him, though. or did they put the date ten years early?"  
So I guess I had already hinted at the rewriting of history. Odd. The things people can forget about their own fics.

_I see. So, they're trying to revive the air nomad traditions, but without the bison and bending. Do they tattoo themselves? _

Occasionally, but it's not quite all that common, considering that the tattoos were signs of how far along with the Bending you were.  
But yeah. And, of course, the one group of people who actually approach Airbending in a way that Aang actually appreciated, don't want to call themselves Air Nomads, because that'd be disrespectful.  
Poor (dead) Aang.

_But I'm not altogether fond of Azyraia after that awful assassination business over *trade*. Plus all the war covering up. I am a fan of truth._

It wasn't really about trade. It was about

(1) The Earth King giving aid to the zaibatsu, so that they might succeed in their attempt to take the Chrysanthemum Throne. He wasn't just buying things he shouldn't have, he was giving the zaibatsu resources for nothing in return, so that they could have an easier job of taking the throne.

(2) The Fire Nation is attempting to keep its machines from proliferating. Right now, the world could take twenty years to go from pre-Industrial to some sort of badass worldwide steampunk civilization which, while badass, will also see a lot of people unemployed because of the machinery. And the weaponry will be far more destructive. Those are just two ways in which the world would be extremely destabilized. By loaning out the machines, but not selling them, and only allowing certain people to know how to assemble or fix them, the Fire Nation is controlling how quickly machinery is being integrated into society, and making sure that there isn't too much upheaval.

Furthermore, as will be seen later on, mad geniuses like the Mechanist (and even Sokka, though his blueprints could've used some refinement) are, while not exactly ~common~, are still a regular occurrence. By the time the next wave of geniuses came along, they would have had a foundation from which they could very easily create something very bad, even if its 'badness' is the mere fact that society would suffer even more upheaval.

I believe that there have been references to Cataclysms by this point. Perhaps those are what happen when these folks aren't contained, and they kick off an ever-accelerating rate of development, until the rest of the world can't adapt fast enough, or somebody makes some really nasty bombs?

Of course, this doesn't mean that the Royal Family is doing this for altruistic reasons. Who wants to rule a world that's been blasted back to the stone age by big bombs?

_Interesting that the fire nation, which apparently started down the road to industrialization even before Sozin's time (I believe there were steam ships in Roku's flashback) is now trying to slow down the process!_

The Royal Family would, in fact, like to destroy the machines entirely, but if they did that, they'd have some big problems, anyways. Namely, ~massive~ unemployment. Back during the War, if you weren't making food, or fighting the War, you were most likely going to be working in the factories. Especially toward the end, there were a lot of people working on the machines. Or working on things which were related to the factories, like mining. You might have had 50% unemployment, or worse. So the Royal Family is trying to scale production back slowly but surely. If they do things too fast, they'll be as screwed as if they weren't controlling industrialization at all.  
That said, even with the anomaly that is the Steampunk Fire Nation, they stayed like that for about a thousand years, without progression, thanks to a few safeguards whose (temporary) failure allowed the steampunkishness in the first place. Those safeguards couldn't bring the Fire Nation's tech DOWN, however, just keep it stable.

* * *

**Chapter Seven: And Years Go By**

_Water Year 1183_

_Makapu Village, Province of Gaoling, the Earth Kingdom_

The smell of rot and ash was thick in the air, and in the distance, past the village, one could still see the pyre where two more corpses had been set aflame. Entire houses were being put to the fire in an effort to keep the disease from spreading, but it was useless. In the months since the first man had died, countless more had followed suit, and only half the village remained.

The fox-faced girl stood in the middle of the village as villagers walked past her, wearing herb-stuffed masks like the one which she wore, and behind them was a corpse, dragged along by rope as they traveled to the pyre.

"Why are you so sad?" she asked them as they passed by. "Why do you hurt so much? Why is this happening? Where did this come from? Why do you take them away from me as I try to comfort them?" she continued to ask, but they ignored her, as if they could not see her, and continued to make their way.

"Why can I not stop you from hurting?"

_Water Year 1183_

_Capital City, The Fire Nation_

Azariya looked at the game board, and pushed a piece three squares forward, then looked back up at Iroh. "How are things going with the girl?"

"Very good. She used to be a tad… a tad indirect in her tactics," Iroh responded. "She preferred to use the environment to her advantage before. Earthbending was a good fit for her because of this. She took out the ground from beneath Sud in her fight with him before she left."

"Interesting. I sense a 'but' in there, however."

"She's not like that anymore." Iroh made his own move, and removed one of his brother's pieces. "She's far more direct. She…" Iroh grasped at the air, trying to find the right way to describe it. "She's devotes everything to offense now. Even when she defends, she just turns those attacks back on themselves. She doesn't try to dodge our flames, or block them, but does her best to catch them and throw them back at us."

"Interesting."

"I suppose that she's still more like a Waterbender in this regard, but she's shown a curious lack of apparent interest in actually using water. Or earth, for that matter. We've even sparred out near the pond a few times, and she did nothing with it except to use the pillar in the center to get the high ground."

"Just fire?" Azariya questioned. "Interesting." He moved another piece, and took two of Iroh's.

"Is that all you're going to say?"

"Well, it is interesting, and I know better than to let myself get distracted when I play against you, brother."

"Yes, she's just using fire. She throws out everything she can, and when we throw something at her, she throws it back at us."

"Interesting. Throw water at her next time."

"Why?"

"To see if she redirects it just as she does the fire. It's a very interesting tactic, and one that can work. I'd like to see if she's able to maintain it with other elements, or if she has to maintain her concentration for the fire."

_Water Year 1184_

_Ba Sing Se, Province of Ba Sing Se, The Earth Kingdom_

Sixteen years old, and he was managing a shop. Well, sort of. One of the _nan's _sons was keeping an eye on him and giving a bit of advice here and there, and it was a well-established shop that very nearly ran itself, but this was only a stepping stone. Besides, Lao wasn't going to decline a chance to get some practice in before actually handling a difficult job.

"Experimenting with the tea, Lao?" someone asked, and it was a second before Lao realized that it was the _nan_.

"Y-yes, sir."

"Good. Good. You have to have fine tea sense, not just fine business sense, if you want to run a shop of mine. But then, you need to have a good sense of it just to work here, don't you? So how is it coming along?"

"It's a little bit off right now. Just a little bit too sour. So I'm rolling them just a little less tightly. The main problem isn't getting it right so much as it's getting it right without excessive measuring and attention. If I'm going to make it something that doesn't take an insane amount of time to prepare, then I need to be able to get a process that gets it right without having to spend too much time on the details."

The _nan_ nodded to himself. "So how will we be marking this tea once you've finished it, Lao? Shall it be for the shops of Ba Sing Se, or wider distribution, or for whatever shop you happen to be housed at, to be one of its peculiarities and unique brews?"

"Actually, I was thinking that we might use this for when you start to try to expand into Moka."

"You're thinking rather far into the future, my boy."

"Well, why not? You're going to be doing it, aren't you?"

"That I am, that I am. Well, don't spend so much time experimenting that you forget about the rest of your responsibilities."

"Of course not sir."

_Water Year 1184_

_Zodoru Island, The Fire Nation_

The grain stood tall and firm, pale against the light of the moon which shone above. Only a short time ago, there would have been barely anyone still here. The workers have long since left the fields and gone to bed, and once there would have been only a few watchmen. Now, there were nearly as many watching the fields at night as there were men working them in the day.

Or at least there had been nearly as many, for yet another watchman slumped down to the ground, with an arrow in his gullet. He managed to get out a strangled cry before he died, but already most of the sentries had been killed from afar, and as those who remained moved out to meet the attackers, they found themselves overwhelmed.

One of the clans was responsible, but it did not matter which of the zaibatsu was behind this, though all had their suspicions. All were suffering, or at least appeared to be suffering, and this had happened many times before since the Royal Family had shattered the power of the _zaibatsu_. Perhaps the Royal Family was even attempting to press the advantage and force their adversaries even further into defeat, but it seemed just as likely that there was treachery in the ranks. Who could suffer just as much as the others, yet still survive in the end even as all the rest died away?

The Royal Family would do nothing even if the perpetrator was discovered, but would merely make sure that they could take that clan out once it had done in all the rest, and the _zaibatsu _themselves were too divided. Who would believe any evidence, and not suspect that it was merely forged to cause further dissension. And perhaps it even would be. So it didn't really matter who was behind it. This had happened before, and it would happen again.

Heads rolled, bodies collapsed, and the fields burned.

_Water Year 1184_

_Ba Sing Se, Province of Ba Sing Se, The Earth Kingdom_

It was _his_.

No, no, no that wasn't right. The Black Sword didn't belong to him. It belonged to somebody else. Somebody else. Somebody else. It belonged to itself. Yes, that was right. The Black Sword belonged to itself. It was a part of a greater part of…

But he had to protect it. He had been chosen to protect it, to carry it, bear it bring it to somebody…

Who?

He was hungry. He hadn't eaten in days. Except for the rat.

Where was he?

He had never gone this far into Ba Sing Se before. He wondered if he had ever been in the city before. Of course he had. But why couldn't he remember any of the streets?

Keep the sword safe keep the sword safe keep the sword safe. It was the only thing that mattered. He would find the… Find _him_. The person who would bring the Black Sword to its greater part, and they would be united and the world would be saved and cleansed like it should have been centuries ago.

He was so tired.

But the Black Sword gave him the strength to keep on going. He would go on until he died. He knew that he had to do this. He had to find the— "That's _mine_! Get away! Get away! Don't you dare even look at it! You aren't worthy! I know you want it, but I won't let you take it! It's not yours! It's mine! My… my duty… Keep it safe. I won't let you steal it!"

People were starting to walk a little faster past him, and he smiled. He wouldn't let anyone steal the Black Sword. Filthy, filthy, filthy… He saw them looking at it with envious eyes, seeing through the wrappings, just like Gan had.

Gan shouldn't have kept on looking at it. But he figured out why Gan was looking at it. Saw the desire.

It was Gan's fault. They shouldn't have thrown him out. It wasn't his fault. Wasn't his fault.

Didn't matter. Duty. Keep it safe from all their grubbing greedy thieving hands.

He'd kill them, too, if they tried to take it.

Not theirs! Not theirs! Not theirs!

And in his dreams, the Black Sword whispered to him, and he knew that it was proud of him. Cleansing, burning, purifying, destroying, raging, cauterizing, flame. Beautiful flame. Black Sword, drowned in the ocean. Something was coming in the sky, and it sang to him.

The song was beautiful.

_Water Year 1184_

_Capital City, The Fire Nation_

The room in which Nini sat was utterly bare, save for the mat. Her legs were crossed, and she must have done something wrong, because the feeling was starting to go out in one of them, but that didn't matter. She would move again long before that actually became a problem.

She had had an epiphany two days ago, as clear as if someone had spoken the secret into her mind. The Energybending must have unlocked something in her. Perhaps it was knowledge from one of her previous incarnations.

Nini closed her eyes again and turned her attention inward. There was a sea inside her, roiling, churning. Almost a storm. There was power to be found here. Everything which she could do came from here.

One by one, she shut down her senses, closing herself off to the rest of the world. Suddenly the feeling was gone in more than just her leg, and even though she was already blind, with her eyes closed, she suddenly felt as if there was an even greater darkness behind her eyelids now. The faint noises from the room to the left vanished, and she could not smell, and could not taste, and there was nothing but the sea she felt inside of her.

She figured that she was breathing slowly and mechanically now, but couldn't know for sure. It didn't matter anyways. The sea slowed and calmed, until it was utterly still.

It surged momentarily, and she knew that a small flame had temporarily burst into life in her cupped hands, and she smiled mentally, concentrating. It was one thing to point to somebody and show where the Fire Chakra was, and another to find it in oneself when trying to manipulate it.

Though she could not feel anything, she still felt an electric shock rush through her body as she manipulated the sea, and she grinned as she let her senses return. Nini could barely wait to tell the Royal Family. But she had to wait, unfortunately. She wanted to have it absolutely perfect before she showed them, and even before she left the room she knew from prior experience that she would find that several hours had passed since she had started, even though it certainly hadn't felt like that to her. That could hardly be considered a sign of absolute perfection.

But who would have thought that she could have done anything like this in the first place? She would have it mastered soon enough, and they'd know that they hadn't wasted their time with this. Maybe she'd even be able to teach _them_ how to do it. Hopefully it wasn't some sort of Avatar-only trick. That would be disappointing.

_Water Year 1185_

_Dezo Town, The Fire Nation_

"Hello Azka," Chizato said just before the door to her bedroom opened.

"I'm surprised that you knew it was me."

"Only a blind woman would have failed to notice what you did four years ago."

"Four years? Has it really been that long? How the years go by."

Anozo Chizato shook her head slowly and stepped away from the full-length mirror she had been standing in front of. "Don't play games with me."

"So why hasn't anyone else done anything?"

"I admit, if I hadn't seen you do it, I wouldn't have been suspecting you of anything. But Goto Izamu is dead, and you no doubt have Manabu in your pocket."

"He didn't like the 'burning the fields' plan very much."

"But you no doubt have stores of resources prepared for what you would do to yourself, and other countermeasures to lighten the blow. Would you mind making it quick, though?"

Azka's eyes widened. "Excuse me?"

"I told you not to play games. Kill me quickly, or not at all. You don't need to twist the knife and flay me alive before you finish the deed."

He chuckled. "Oh. That. I'm not going to kill you," he said, and he pulled out a bottle of clear liquid from somewhere within his clothes. "You're going to do it yourself."

Chizato stared at him, and he took a step back, holding his hands up. "Only if you want to," Azka clarified. "But after I heard that the Royal Family was going to be ordering an audit of your clan—" Chizato snorted "I figured that you would want to go on your own terms."

"So who will be getting the spoils this time? I've noticed that you've nearly swallowed up a few other lesser clans, too."

"Dear old Manabu will skim a bit of your assets off the top, and I'll glean a bit here and there from the clans who take whatever the Royal Family doesn't. We're going to try to leave the bulk of the railways in the hands of the lesser clans, though. If the Royal Family gets it, it'll never be gotten to, but if we take much of it now, we might tip our hand."

"Is it painless?"

"Euphoric!" he declared brightly. "I wanted to make sure that you understood this wasn't personal, Chizato. It's just business."

"I'm sure," she said flatly. "Well, give it here," she continued slowly, and she looked out her window, where she saw a faint orange glow in the distance. The whole estate would probably be burnt to the ground in a few hours at the most.

She took a deep breath, uncorked it, and swallowed the liquid in a single gulp. "Pity we couldn't have actually worked together we were supposed—"

Anozo Chizato never got any further than that before she fell to the ground, unable to move as the poison worked its way through her system.

_Water Year 1185_

_Ba Sing Se, Province of Ba Sing Se, The Earth Kingdom_

He hungered, and he thirsted, and demons danced at the edge of his vision.

This last was particularly distressing.

They spoke to him, asking him to give up the Black Sword. They begged, they politely requested, they screamed, they demanded, they swore that they would kill him if he did not give it to him, they offered to give him his name back, and he wondered when he had lost it.

The neighborhood knew him well now— the crazy man, the rambling man, who clutched something wrapped in rags. He muttered under his breath, he screamed obscenities at passers-by who dared to let their eyes linger at whatever it was he was holding.

Where was the man whose eyes burned like fire and who moved like a leaping spark? Where was the man for whom the Black Sword was destined? Where was the man to whom he would need to give the Black Sword? Where was the man who would usher in the new age?

He feared that he would not find the man. Was he on a fool's quest?

No.

These were the doubts which the demons fed his mind. They were not his. His will was absolute, and he knew his mission. He would not falter would not stumble would not fail would not would not would not. No. He would not. They could not trick him could not seduce him could not persuade him could not steal the Black Sword from him, however much they tried. Could not.

He would not let them.

But the world was faint and far from his concern, save for when others looked upon the Black Sword with greedy eyes, and he failed to notice the man walking behind him. He barely even noticed when something slid into his back, something cold and hard, though whether it was because he was too absorbed or because his other pains were too great, would be hard to tell. A dim flicker of recognition fluttered through his mind when he collapsed to his knees, but as the Black Sword was wrenched from his weak grasp and he was kicked sideways into a pile of trash, the edges of his vision were already growing blurry, and he found that he was unable to find the strength to scream at his murderer.

_Water Year 1186_

_Capital City, The Fire Nation_

Twenty-one years old. Nearly twenty-two.

Nini was sweating whole oceans and she had broken bones and her skin was all one massive bruise, it felt like, and it would be a killer to get out of bed tomorrow morning, and she had a nice long burn on her left arm— burning cold, but the Fire Lord didn't hold back, did he?— and none of it mattered.

She was barely capable of sitting on the floor, leaning on the wall, without simply collapsing sideways from exhaustion, but that was alright. Even if he had gone easy on her— she'd long suspect this, and would only eventually, long from now, come to a conclusion one way or another— it had still been difficult.

Kahchi walked over to her, slid down next to her, and handed her a cup of tea. "Grandmother says that she'll refrain from torturing you for today and tomorrow as a reward."

"How gracious of her."

"Oh, she doesn't mind. She still has a few days after that, before you leave."

Nini nodded, smiling slightly. "So…"

There was a short silence, and then one of them spoke.

"You'll be writing, won't you?"

"Well, only if _you_ do the same."

"Try things out once everything is over?"

"Of course."

"Let's go to the Catacombs then."

Silence again.

"I look horrible, don't I?"

"Hmm… No, not really. Say, are you ever going to touch that tea?"

_Water Year 1186_

_Hing Wa Island, The Fire Nation_

It was times like this was Fukazi Azka felt supremely content with his lot in life. This wasn't to say that he ever felt tempted to put a halt to his plans regarding the Royal Family. Far from it. For one thing, his lot in life included with it the chance to elevate the Clan Fukazi to the ranks of the True-Boned. From there, Fukazi would be able to intermarry into the Royal Family, one way or another, and from there…

Azka did not ask for much. As head of his clan, he knew his purpose, and he had propelled the Clan Fukazi forward for many years. His successor would do likewise, and so would his, and on and on, until one day the Dragon Bone Catacombs contained the remains of a member of the Clan Fukazi. Arai was a sticky matter, and there was a mild fear in Azka's bones when it came to that clan, but it would be endured. It was far better to have compatriots in this sort of endeavor, to divide and conquer the other _zaibatsu_ without much trouble, and Azka was fully confident that Manabu wasn't capable of turning on his ally. If worst came to worst, there were many back-up plans, and Azka could be assured that even as he burned, the whole of the Clan Arai would be coming down with him, while the overall plan was merely pushed back by another century or two.

But there was no time for worrying now. He had just recently received a most interesting gift.

An old book, with pages so aged that they were yellow and fragile, and he handled them with the utmost care, taking care to record each and every page before turning it, so that once he was done he might store it away for safekeeping. He could not understand any of the words, but had enough of a grasp of old historical trivia to suspect, by the time he was a quarter of the way through, that this was very important. Oh, it was incredibly old, and he couldn't know for sure, but this language was definitely an old Fire Nation script. Long before the Fire Nation was unified, perhaps even long before Northern Court fell.

The Northern Court. Peculiar. Peculiar. He'd seen a few of their artifacts, and this looked very familiar to some of the symbols he'd seen. Older than the language used on those, or younger, or some cousin script. Something like that.

"Tell me," his visitor asked, hidden in the shadows, "how would you call down Agni?"

"This is a rhetorical question, yes?"

"Perhaps. Mostly. I know the answer, but you don't, and you should definitely figure it out."

"So what does this book say? Does it talk about that?"

A dark chuckle. "I'm afraid that I can't speak any further on this matter."

"But you said that you could speak it!"

"So I can. But this has been keeping me for far too long, and I have other matters to attend to. Don't worry; there are others in the world who can translate this for you. Consider it a test, to find one and procure his services without letting the Royal Family figure out what you have in your possession. I assure you that they will be most interested in it."

* * *

**A/N **After a conversation with Shadow Wasserson about the nature of Firebending, and whether it actually just required emotion and a will to direct that emotion in a particular fashion, I'm wondering what Firebending would look like when fueled by something other than anger or harmony.

Also, I'm having to skip over some things, and merely reference to them, to avoid spending too much time bogged down in one particular time and taking three chapters to follow a single year (I already spent far longer than I'd expected, with Nini and Firebending), but I was wondering how this is working for you folks. Any problems with this style? Or anything else I've been doing?

As for the the lightning Nini has started working on in the beginning of the chapter, she's still working on it even a few years later, when this chapter ends, and so she hasn't talked to anyone about it. This'll be given more attention in the next chapter, but someone might be wondering about the dates, and I couldn't quite find the right place to insert something along the lines of "Nini still hasn't mastered lightning, and is still working on it, and hasn't told anyone about it" without making it seem just thrown in there.


	9. Up and Forward

**A/N **Sooooo tired... Updating this early, so don't expect anything this Sunday. I believe that there's another four chapters in _All the Myriad Faces_ to be written. Three chapters in Part Two, _Crashing into the Past_, and one chapter in _Look Forward with Hope_. But who knows... Might have to split the third part into two chapters. It'll be a lengthy one, after all. After that, it's crime and drugs and hidden cabals and Avatar Tong, who finds himself in a situation which would have been very extremely familiar to young pre-iceberg Aang. But as for now, with Nini, you can look forward to a possibly important step in finding new Airbenders, a talk with Koh (and other spirits), the Continuing Adventures of Whoever-Happens-To-Be-Holding-The-Black-Sword-Right-Now, some fracturing, some instability, and some very bad things happening. As always, reviews are goodness, and if anything at all is unclear, please tell me. I'll be more than happy to explain it, if I'm able to do so without spoiling future events (and as Shadow Wasserson would be able to tell you, I can explain quite a lot without spoiling future events).

And thanks to Shadow Wasserson for the edit suggestions.

**

* * *

Chapter Eight: Up and Forward**

_Water Year 1186_

_The Northern Air Temple, Province of Ba Sing Se, The Earth Kingdom_

It was a large, mechanical lift which slowly raised Nini up from the depths. The thing just wouldn't stop creaking, and even stopped to shudder a few times, and it was all that Nini could do to continually remind herself that it had been working perfectly for decades— ever since it was constructed to replace the last system, which hadn't been so… No! Time to think of different things.

Eventually it stopped, and it wasn't until she heard someone else speaking that she opened her eyes and realized that she was finally at the temple. There was an old man standing in front of the lift, straight and thin as a reed. He smiled warmly, opened up the door to the lift, and took a few steps inside before quickly giving a slight bow. "We are honored that you would come here, Avatar Nini."

"Well, it's where the scrolls are at, right? I can hardly go anywhere else if I actually wanted to learn any Airbending."

"You could have studied anywhere you desired, Avatar," he replied. "We would have delivered the scrolls there."

"It doesn't really matter."

"Shall I bring you to your room?"

"That would be nice. Thank you." As she followed after him, she asked another question. "So what's your name?"

The man hesitated before answering. "Gyatso."

"Isn't than an Air Nomad name?"

"Yes." He sighed, and shushed away a monk who had stopped walking in order to stare at the temple's esteemed visitor. "I apologize if you receive any bothersome looks. I and the rest of the council have tried to impress upon them just how important it is that we remain courteous and dignified, but… It's not every day that the Avatar comes to study here with us, you understand."

"It's alright," she assured him, and she followed him down another hall.

"Anyways, it is an Air Nomad name. I do not wish to speak ill of them, but my parents had not enough respect for the Air Nomads. They probably thought that it was doing them honor of some sort, but it's just not right to take their names. We walk their halls, we sleep in their rooms, we dress in the clothing which they might have worn, but to take that final step and… take their names…" Gyatso shook his head slowly and swallowed. "It was not a respectful thing which they did, but they would not listen to reason. Remember, Avatar Nini, that mixing fire and water tends to result in a stubborn couple. A very stubborn couple." He began to walk up a set of stairs.

"Why not change your name, then?"

"I feel that I must respect their insistence," Gyatso explained. "I am very conflicted about the matter, but ultimately, despite the way some treated me, I felt that it would be just as wrong to change it as to leave it be. I suppose that the council felt the same way, or else I would not have eventually found myself at its head."

They turned again, and then Gyatso held out an arm, and opened a door with the other. "Here we are. This will be your room, until such time that you decide to relocate, whether to another room or away from the temple, for whatever reason."

Nini took a few more steps to reach it and then quickly walked it. She began to walk around, examining every single thing which was in it. This did not, however, take very long. There was but a desk, a chair, a bedroll, several cabinets, and then three quills and an inkwell on the desk. Absolutely nothing else.

"We have done only what was necessary to preserve it, and have otherwise left alone everything which was in this room. Indeed, some wanted to simply leave it be entirely, right down to leaving the uneaten food which Avatar Aang had left, but thankfully they were in the minority. We have set aside a grove of trees grown from the seeds from the uneaten fruits, however, which managed to mollify some of them. I am sorry to say that we did not manage such a sensible solution with regards to his… his remains."

Nini looked up from the cat owl quills and turned to him. "What do you mean?"

"There is a small group of Earthbenders who can trace their teachings back to Malu, who was herself taught by Avatar Aang."

"In Earthbending?"

"Yes and no. She would Bend the earth, but she did so with the style of the Air Nomads, focusing on evasion, among other things. She and those she taught would eventually convince too many of how his remains should be treated. He was prepared for a sky burial…"

"That doesn't sound too bad," Nini said cautiously, after it became clear that he was not going to say anything else.

"They sliced him open and strewed his organs across the field, and left his remains for the raven eagles and vulture griffons and that was not all that they did! Thieves!" he snarled, eyes glowering, and Nini was startled by this sudden change in demeanor. "They defiled him! They desecrated him!"

"Why did they do that?"

Gyatso didn't speak for a minute. "We do it to ourselves. If we're going to try to live as the Air Nomads did, we must dispose of our remains as they did." He trembled. "But not the _Avatar_. To do that to the _Avatar_…" He shook his head slowly. "While you are in the room you shall be left alone. Anyone who disturbs you here will be severely punished, although I am afraid that we cannot entirely temper the enthusiasm of some of our people while you walk among us. This section of the temple has, in fact, been closed off to the majority of the population. You should have a few halls in which you can walk undisturbed, but I cannot completely prevent you from being bothered if you wander farther than that."

"That's fine," she assured him. "It won't be any trouble at all."

"Meals will be brought to your door three times a day, and will be announced with a short, soft knock, so as to inform you that it has come, but without disturbing you if you are in thought or sleeping. We were not sure of your preferences and so you will shortly be receiving a meal made as close to a traditional Southern Water Tribe meal as we can make it. The kitchens are, of course, open to you at all time, and we can raise or lower the number of meals, or the size, or anything else at all. We want your stay here to be as comfortable, efficient, and productive as it can be. If you have any other questions, ask anyone at all for me. Everyone knows who I am, and I should be found within a short time."

"Don't worry about it, Monk Gyatso. You mentioned the Sensu-kata. Could I—"

"I shall arrange a meeting between you and their head as soon as possible."

"Thank you."

"You are very welcome, Avatar Nini." He bowed again and left, closing the door silently behind him.

She inhaled slowly and let it all out, then scratched her shoulder idly as she looked around the room.

"Amazing, isn't it?" someone said behind her. The voice was low, deep, almost crackling like a fire.

"Wha—" She dropped the inkwell she had just picked up and quickly spun around, coming face to face with what looked almost like a wolf… wolf… wolf-_something_… She bit her lip, and the thing shook its head and chuckled. Its eyes burned like hot coals.

"Just a wolf."

"Just a wolf?"

"Is there an echo in here? Just a wolf. Not a wolfbat, not a wolfhare, not a foxwolf. Just a wolf."

"That's… weird…" Her eyes widened.

"You're just now catching on to the fact that I'm talking, no doubt."

She nodded slowly. "I'm sorry. The whole 'wolf-and-nothing-else-but-a-wolf' appearance distracted me."

The wolf sighed. "It's alright. You're not trying to kill me, at least."

"Does that happen often?"

"On occasion. I showed up when the Avatar of the time was taking a bath. She didn't take it very nicely."

"It was probably the timing."

"Or what I was doing, but sure, that explanation works too. I'd gotten too used to the Avatar of two turns previous and forgotten to say 'Hello.'"

"Who are you?"

The wolf sat back on his haunches and raised his head proudly. "You can call me Hidama. I'm your aide, you could say."

"Excuse me?"

"Your aide. Your helper. Your, ahem, companion, and if you'd like to take that in more than one way, I most _certainly_ wouldn't mind," he said, his eyes wandering up and down Nini's body.

"That's disgusting!"

"I could take a different form," he suggested.

"Eyes! Up! At my face!"

"I suppose I could oblige," Hidama said slowly. "It's not like that view is any worse."

She collapsed into the chair. "Yue and La grant me strength," she muttered.

"Now, now, you're nowhere as attractive when you're sad. Cheer up. I'm here to help you, after all."

Nini took her face out of her hands. "How, exactly?"

"Well, for starters, I could teach you how to _really_ enjoy life."

The wolf narrowly missed the inkwell which sailed right past his head.

"I missed on purpose. Consider that your final warning before I start throwing fire."

The wolf actually grinned, which, Nini was sure, should have been impossible. "Of course, my dear. As I was just saying, I'm here to help you, miss, just as I've done for all, well, _most_ of the Avatars for a few thousand years now."

"Why?" she asked. "And how exactly can you help me, anyways?"

Hidama exhaled slowly. "I've done some things I'm not exactly proud of. I figured that helping out the Avatar would in turn help me get back in Agni's good graces, but eventually I started to do it for its own sake. This job isn't half bad. I know my way around the Spirit World, I can pop in on people without being seen— well, that doesn't really apply to you, unfortunately…" The wolf stopped talking, and began to shift almost like smoke. He became faint and dark, and then in the blink of an eye he looked remarkably more human, although his eyes still burned, and looked remarkably wolfish. "I have some forty-four hundred years of experience, and while that's nothing compared to, say, some of the spirits you'll find in the ocean or deep below the earth, or beyond the stars, they aren't very talkative, now are they? As for those who are so unfortunately fated to wear flesh and be blind to the Spirit World, they've got a century at most, usually, maybe more if they're from the Earth Kingdom, and by that time, they're all _wrinkly_ and, well…" The wolf shrugged. "Even if you don't care much about looks, they certainly lack stamina by that point."

"I'm keeping you for your knowledge. I expect you to keep your hands and paws to yourself, along with whatever other appendages you happen to have available."

Hidama nodded, and flowed back into the form she'd first seen him in. "If that's really your wish. But trust me, you'll think differently in time," he said, grinning.

"Sure." Nini walked over to one of the cabinets and drew open a drawer. There were many of scrolls contained inside, and she would have to start _somewhere_. "Do you happen to have any idea how this is sorted?"

"The further a cabinet is to the left, the less advanced it is. The lower the compartment, the less advanced it is. Then it's top-to-bottom, and left-to-right, so take the ones on top."

"Thank you."

"Don't mention it. Anything else you need help with?"

Nini shook her head and yawned. "No. I don't think so. I'm just going to take a look at what I have to look forward to and then take a little nap, and maybe do some exploring once everyone is asleep."

"Oh-ho. _Exploring_?"

"Not like that. Pursue those thoughts further and I will have your…" She suddenly stopped, deciding that it might just be a little too close for him to twist against her. "Pursue those thoughts further and you die in horrible, horrible ways."

"Horribly pleas— Alright, alright. I'll be going on my way, then. Call me when you need a question answered or an itch scratched."

There was a cracking sound, and then blessed, blessed silence.

* * *

The Royal Family had seen fit to teach her a little bit on dancing— not that she couldn't dance before, but there was a distinct difference in style between Water Tribe and Fire Nation— but it hadn't been for the purpose of culturing her, or whatever they had been trying to do, but for her Firebending training. Now, the concept of placing Bending moves into a dance form wasn't new to her— everyone did it— but the emphasis on offense was very surprising. Most dances incorporated basic moves, for a string of elementary practice, or moves which would complement the dance and give it a special flair. The fire did add something to the dance, yes, but as she flowed down the halls, bobbing, ducking, weaving in and out and launching herself in the air with a strong push, catching herself and rolling before popping back up and throwing a strong blast, she couldn't help but notice that the dance was very, very well-suited to offensive purposes.

When Nini had first learned the form, she'd immediately recognized it as something which Hiashi had used two weeks before when they were sparring, and at first she had felt a bit ashamed that she apparently hadn't forced the older woman to deviate at all from the script. Then it was explained that there were actually some two dozen different blocks of up to four moves each, all designed to flow naturally from and to the others, and that Fudo was well aware that he had just copied what his sister had chosen before.

She had had a talk with Ursa before on the matter of these dances, and their obvious bent toward war. It seemed that nearly everything, from songs and poems to dances and plays, had something to do with war. Nini had thought that there were at least some paintings which had escaped this, being as they were simple portraits or pictures of landscapes, but even these were to be interpreted through the same lens, Ursa said, if they had been produced since the end of the Century Wars. No, not all of the paintings were pictures of great battles or the generals who fought them, or renderings of the tactics which they used, but nearly always, the paintings related to war, representing not just a place or person, but a reason for fighting. "We look at these paintings, and they remind us of why we must be willing to kill to protect our homeland," Ursa had told her. "Or the homelands of others," she continued, pointing to a picture of Sinaliarpok, the city which lay in the north.

"But you don't fight anymore."

"No, not anymore. But inevitably, there will be another war, and we fully intend to win it. It is the way of the world, that there will be another war, whether it comes tomorrow or in one thousand years."

So the new literature was about those who went off to war, and what they faced there, and about those who came back, and how that could often be just as bad, and about those who had never left, and had needed to push forward even as they stayed behind to man the factories and the farms and all the other necessities. So songs were sung to inspire soldiers on to war if the time came, or keep spirits up and hands moving during work, or lull the children to sleep even as they heard of why they should be happy to defend their land if necessary. So the new dances trained mind and body for combat and could break or kill a man if used properly.

But it had been worse, during the Century Wars, when there wasn't any culture of any sort. In an attempt to foster dedication through a different route, the people were not permitted anything that might turn their attentions from the war.

Nini tried not to judge. Whatever the Fire Nation had produced since the end of the Century Wars, it was a match for whatever the rest of the world had produced, and if it tended to have a certain focus in most cases, that wasn't really something she could fault them for. Someone had once told her that any nation would be hard-pressed to win a war against the Fire Nation, with the way it was now, and that this would mean that any nation would be hard-pressed by its circumstances before it even considered the possibility of starting such a war; by making themselves ready for war, the Fire Nationals ensured that they would not have to fight one.

It certainly wasn't too bad of an idea, all things consid—

Something just shoved itself rather forcefully into her stomach, and Nini found herself falling backwards, landing on her rear and in a most undignified position. She shook her head and looked up to see what had hit her, and there was a short woman standing in front of her, no doubt staring at her from behind those smoked glass lenses.

The old woman poked her again, with a long walking stick, and Nini realized that the old woman had slammed it into her stomach.

"Who are you?"

"N-Nini. Avatar Nini."

"The Avatar. Right." The woman moved her gaze away, to the ceiling, but continued talking. "So what are you doing, throwing fire around in the temple's halls?"

"Practicing, Nun… May I ask your name?"

"No," the woman replied flatly. "How's that for an answer? Don't bother asking Gyatso, either. He doesn't know, either, and he'll just be worried that you now suddenly hate the temple and would like to move somewhere else, all because of little old me."

"But you're not concerned about that." Not a question, just an observation.

"Why would I be? My life was perfectly fine before you came, and it would be just as wonderful whether you left or stayed."

Suddenly aware that she was still in a less-than-respectable position, Nini pulled her legs into a crossed position. "Why are you here?"

There was silence for some time.

"I realized one day as I was getting old," she said eventually, "and that I had not seen any of the world. I decided that there was no reason why I should change that, and after I put my affairs in order, I decided to come here to die. I still have a few years left in me, I guess, but this is as good a place as any to be. These so-called monks are easy to intimidate, although it's not as entertaining as you might think. Too easy."

The old woman exhaled slowly. Her gaze was still focused on the ceiling. "What about you?" she asked.

"I'm trying to learn Airbend—"

"No, no, and no. What are you doing out here at night? Shouldn't you be asleep? You're much too old to be making trouble."

"There's an age to be making trouble?"

"Of course there is. Young children are entertaining for that reason. Again, why are you out here?"

"Why are you? You just explained why you were at the temple, but apparently that's not good enough of an answer from me."

"I'm tired of having to deal with everyone here. I came here to die, not to play pai sho and gammu with people so old that you can hear their joints creaking. They never shut up, and even when they ignore me, they're ignoring me in a very pointed way. I don't need to deal with them."

"I wanted to explore the temple."

"What was with the fancy stepping and the fire then?"

"Practicing as I wandered."

"Damn Firebenders…" The old woman shook her head. "Them and their machines. They could all be swallowed up by the earth for all I care, they should stick to their own lands."

"Why?"

"Nothing's good come out of any of this mixing, let me tell you. Old Bei Fong wouldn't have had to train her Che Kof Metalbenders if it wasn't for the Fire Nation coming in and trying to brighten up the world with those flames of theirs. These monks wouldn't be here, tramping through the halls like they own the place. A lot less hearts broken if we'd all just stuck to our own corners of the world, stayed put."

"I'm sorry. I'll be going. I'm sorry for disturbing you."

The woman shook her head. "I really don't care much. It's fine." Her shoulders sagged. "They are more than a handful of people here like me. Lot of us seem to come here to forget what we left behind. I sometimes wonder if any of my old friends came here for the same reason I did, and just died before I got here… If you see me again, don't hesitate to talk. Okay, Nini?"

"S-sure. Sure. Alright."

Nini nodded, and the old woman began to walk past her as if nothing at all had happened.

* * *

Nini would continue to practice for some time after, and so she was still asleep when there was a knocking on the door. She jerked suddenly, and would have fallen out of bed, had she actually been sleeping in a bed, rather than a simple bedroll on the floor— the Avatar's bedroll, which gave her some sort of mixed feeling she couldn't quite understand, like peace and fond memories and unease all wrapped up in one. She was pretty sure that she wouldn't try to get a different one, though.

The knocking happened again, and she slipped out of the bedroll and ran to the door. "I'm coming, I'm coming," she mumbled, trying to shake out the last vestige of sleep. She opened the door, and there was a slightly round-shaped woman standing there, holding up a tray of food.

"Oh, right. Breakfast. Rig—"

"Actually, this was already here." The woman grinned broadly, and Nini could see every one of her teeth. "Monk Gyatso said that you were interested in meeting with someone from the Sensu Kata?"

"Yes! Yes. That would be very nice. I was hoping that you might be able to help with my training, you see."

"I'm afraid that we are not able to do that, Avatar Nini." The round woman looked down at the tray of food. "May I come in, and would you like to eat? I'm sure that you must be hungry."

The woman closed the door behind her as Nini settled herself down onto the bedroll.

"Why can't you help me? I thought that your whole order was started by someone who was taught Airbending by Avatar Aang himself."

"You're forgetting something, unfortunately, and what you are forgetting is also the reason why we cannot teach you; Malu was taught Airbending, but as an Earthbender. While many of our techniques are nearly exactly the same as their Airbending equivalents, every single move we could teach you has required some degree of alteration in order to account for the fact that while air can come from anywhere, the earth more often can come only from the ground you are standing on. We have no choice but to refuse to teach you, because if we did not refuse, you would still not be learning Airbending, but even worse, you would think that you _were_."

"Oh." That was about all that Nini could come up with.

"We will help you with whatever necessary, but we can best help you in this particular matter by not helping you. I am sorry."

"Avatar Aang must have figured that the scrolls would be enough," Nini said. "It's okay."

_Water Year 1186_

_Misty Palms Oasis, The Province of Si Wong_

The raven flitted here and there, moving unseen, appearance as the situation suited, raven here, now man, now something with far too many eyes, not so much changing its shape as it suddenly looked different, as if it were all these things at once, but only a single form could be seen by those who had eyes to see.

Heheh. Eyes to see. The raven had no name, but it had a sense of humor. None of these humans were touched, so none of them could see it. But that wasn't important right now.

As a raven it flew frantically in a circle, trying to rid itself of its frustration and this sudden new feeling which it couldn't understand or put a name to, any more than he could put a name to himself. As a man, it continued writing, for old habits are hard to break, even when they are now obsolete. "What do you _mean_, He Who Knows Ten Thousand Things is gone?"

Also unseen by the patrons of the bar, the small fox looked into the other spirit's eyes again, and an understanding came to it. "But why would he lock himself away from us?"

The fox looked into the spirit's eyes.

"So we're… useless, then?"

The fox did so again.

"Okay, so that's not too bad. But it's still hard…" The spirit shook its head, and it was a man again, writing down the conversation even as it took note of every little action which took place in the bar. "So it's business as usual? We're not out of a job, actually?"

The fox stared.

"I don't care if it's your best guess, that's good enough for me. I'll be honest: I'll grasp any chance that's available, that the old owl isn't closing up shop permanently. There are things out there just waiting to snatch me up the moment that Wan Shi Tong stops employing me. You've probably made some spirits angry, too. All of us have. Oh, oh, we were stupid, weren't we? We should have known that we couldn't rely on his patronage forever, and that we'd have to eventually answer for all the stupid things we'd done while under his protection…"

The fox did it again.

"Okay, okay, good plan. But… Well, okay. So I guess that I'm not meeting him after all. Well, I'll still send on my reports. You make sure that your buddies keep on getting books, and I'll spread the word to my peers, tell them the situation, and make sure that they keep on sending you books."

Knowledge-seekers, the foxes were. Seekers and retrievers of books. But history left out little details, and that was where the raven's kind came in. They were the ones who recorded history as it happened, down to the most minute detail.

"Try to work him over, best as you can. And keep in touch."

_Water Year 1186_

_The Northern Air Temple, Province of Ba Sing Se, The Earth Kingdom_

_Well, here I am_, Nini wrote_. First day I've really been here, as I'm writing this. Yesterday I just got here, so that doesn't count. How are things doing at home? Is Grandmother Ursa still tormenting you, or has she lessened up now that I'm no longer there? _

_Things have been… Let's say "interesting," since I've—_

A furry head rested on her shoulder. "Writing a letter, are you?"

"Get off of me."

"Well, I don't here _that_ too often from the ladies," Hidama said, but he obeyed.

"Can you teach me Bending?"

"No."

"Why?"

"I'm a spirit of fire, my dear. It's not in my nature to be able to teach you how to Bend air like you should, and I know that that's what you were asking about."

"How exactly have you helped the previous Avatars?"

"I give good advice, for one. Experience is very helpful. I've been around history long enough to recognize the cycles it goes through, so I can give pretty good advice."

"You didn't help Avatar Aang, did you?"

"Excuse me?"

"Avatar Aang. Did you help him?"

There was a pause before Hidama answered. "No. I was planning on introducing myself when he turned sixteen. Then the Century Wars happened, and I went off to wait until the next Avatar came."

"But after Aang came back, you did nothing."

"I didn't realize it until he was in his thirties. I hadn't even realized how much time had gone by, so focused I was on waiting for that feeling to rush through me, the feeling that would signal the birth of the next Avatar. By then, I figured that he had enough to deal with, and I decided to stay close to him, but not reveal myself."

"What were the Century Wars like?"

"Bad. Worse than they tell you, but they've been toning everything down since the time that peace finally came. Give it a few hundred years, and people will barely know about the Century Wars, and a little while after that, nobody will know anything about it, because the books will never mention it."

Something flashed in Nini's eyes. "That's not right. Why? And who's doing in the first place? Who's responsible?"

"Much as I wouldn't mind to see you up against the Royal Family— it'd be an interesting battle to watch, you see— it isn't—" Hidama laid a paw down on her hands, pressing down firmly. "I may not…" He shook his head. "I don't even know why I'm… Right, right…"

"Are you talking to yourself?"

"Stop it, Nini. I'm trying to sort some things out. This is confusing, but anyways, right, okay." Hidama exhaled slowly. "By doing away with the war, the Royal Nation will keep the Earth Kingdom from ever using the Century Wars as a reason to strike at the them or the Water Tribes. The other two powers are doing it for the same reason. Most of the big international wars get covered up like this. A few conflicts with pirates, from one nation or another? That's fine. No problem. But we're talking about big wars here, and there are grudges, see. It doesn't matter whether the Royal Family is warm as fire or cold as ice, they would have good reason to keep it all under the carpet, just like every other country's leaders."

"What did you do that was so bad, that you're on the run from Agni?"

Hidama shook his head. "Not going to tell you, Nini. Not even if you offered your bed. You're better off not knowing."

"But you don't want me to tell anyone about you, do you?"

"Not at all."

"Why should I trust you?"

"There's an old woman I think you know. Your grandmother?"

"Urs—"

"No no no…" Hidama sighed. "_Gran_. Isn't that what you called her?"

"You know her?"

"We're working together on a few things."

"What?"

"Now that, even an Avatar can't know. But trust me, please. It'll become clear soon enough."

_Water Year 1186_

_Ba Sing Se, Province of Ba Sing Se, The Earth Kingdom_

The thief would remind anyone of a rat. It was in his face and his movements, and his slight build, and even in his clothing. It was not an entirely bad thing; rats were intelligent after all. This was simply a description of the overall feel which he gave off, and he was not an altogether despicable man, even though many were, who were described as being like rats.

He was not above killing another if there was something valuable at stake, however, and as he looked at the black sword which was in his hands, he knew that he would kill again without hesitation, in order to keep it. But this city was dangerous. He himself had proven that, when he had killed the crazy man who had owned the sword last. If he wanted to keep the sword safe, then he would have to leave the city.

It wasn't too bad. He would manage, one way or another. He certainly had enough to buy some basic supplies, perhaps set himself up as a poor, young merchant or something. Yes, that could work.

Oh so very soon, and so very quickly, he would be able to escape this city. He would be safe, and the black sword— no, the Black Sword— would be safe as well, and that latter consideration was more important than even his own life. The Black Sword had to be protected, at all costs.

At all costs.

It was perhaps unfortunate that the thief would not last two months before he was slain by a bandit, who took the Black Sword as his prize.

As the bandit stared at the magnificent blade, understanding came to his mind, and he saw with clarity for the first time in his entire life.

He could hear the Black Sword, calling, always, no matter when or where. Surely, it had guided him in his dreams, drawn him closer and closer, ever so close, until he was finally able to kill the one who had guarded it, and take the sword. He had speculated on his destiny, once even idly entertained something lie this, but now, he knows. He _knows_.

Because the Black Sword has taught him.

Rule. Dominate. Forge great nations, and break great nations. This is the commandment which I have given to you, that you will crush them and burn them and destroy them utterly, even to the last trace of their bodies. This was what the Black Sword now whispered, as it waited for the coming of the man who would take the Black Sword, and prepare it for its true master, and for the reunification.

**End of Part One**

"_Some friendships are so strong they can even transcend lifetimes."_

— _**Avatar Roku**_


	10. On To Greater Things

**A/N **For various reasons, I'm going to cut out most of the non-Nini-centric scenes from these next few chapters. Once Nini's life story is done and over with, I'll take another chapter or two for a sort of "And what was everyone else up to?" thing. It's been mentioned a few times that Nini is playing second fiddle at times, so I figured that I may as well actually do something about this. I can't just ignore what else is happening, since it'll be important for Tong and Ilah, her successors, but I can at least show it later on.**  
**

**Part Two: Crashing into the Past**

"_Oh, how could I ever forget you? ONE OF YOUR PREVIOUS INCARNATIONS TRIED TO SLAY ME!!! It was eight or nine-hundred years ago."_

— _Koh the Face-Stealer_

**Chapter Nine: On To Greater Things**

_Water Year 1189_

_The Northern Air Temple, Province of Ba Sing Se, The Earth Kingdom_

It was about as bad as being in a thick blizzard in the middle of winter, when the sun had gone down long, long ago, and still wouldn't be up for weeks. Nini could see, true, but she was just as exhausted now as if she were fighting against a raging wind, and this old woman was almost moving as fast as one.

Nini flipped backwards, landing on her lands and launching herself up again, narrowly avoiding another blow from the old woman's cane— it'd be the third bruise she'd earned tonight, once she got hit again— and then jumped again. She felt as ragged as she had after some of the exercises she'd received from the Royal Family, and this old woman wasn't even breaking a sweat. She never had, not for the three years that she'd been spinning like a whirlwind and knocking Nini upside the head that the Avatar saw fit to stay still for longer than a split second.

"Come on, come on," the old woman growled. "Faster, now! And with less noise! For the spirits' sake, a blind girl could tell where you were. Now _move_!" she yelled, and Nini felt the cane crack against her left arm as she was spinning in the air.

"I'm moving as fast as I can," Nini muttered, and she launched herself off from one of the walls, propelling herself a little bit with a gust of air for extra speed, just before the stick landed right where her head had been. "You're going to crack my head open if you hit it that hard."

"All the more reason for you to move _faster_ then, no?" responded the old woman. "Airbending is about evasion, girl. By the time my cane hits where you just were, you should have jumped twice already. If you're going to ever consider yourself a real Avatar, you're going to have to move like the wind, because the only way to do that is to _use_ it."

Nini collapsed prone onto the floor as the cane passed through the space where her stomach had been.

"I'll stop hitting you with sticks once I can't hit you even once in a whole hour, and the only way that'll happen is if you stop _thinking_—" the cane slammed into Nini's ribs mid-jump, and she collapsed onto the floor, where she was then hit again with the cane, this time on the back. "—and just _act_. No thinking. Just _do it_."

"That's what I'm _trying_ to do…"

"Then try _harder_. You don't have all of the time in the world in order to master Airbending." The old woman smirked, and sighed. "You're doing better. Much better."

"Oh really, Sifu Sifu? I certainly don't feel like it." Nini groaned, and rubbed her back as she sat up.

"Well, when we started out, I was hitting you with every other swing, so yes, I think that you're doing much better."

Nini coughed. "How long have we been practicing?" she asked, looking at her trainer, who always had a perfect sense of time.

"Maybe half an hour," the old woman said after a second's thought. "Three blows in thirty minutes isn't too bad."

"Yes, Sifu Sifu." She drew her knees close into her chest. "Oh, I'm going to be _so_ sore tomorrow morning."

"But not as sore as you would be three years ago. Keep it up, Nini."

"Why are you doing this?"

"What else am I going to do?" The old woman smiled. "This brings back very good memories. Bittersweet, maybe, but I've never not enjoyed training you."

"Have you trained people in Bending before? I thought that you can't—"

"I think that I've proven with you, Nini, that one doesn't need to Bend in order to teach another." She smirked. "It doesn't matter in the end, however. I came here to leave my old life behind, and I'm not going to dredge any of it back up."

"You do know that I'll stop calling you Sifu Sifu if I can actually have some other name to refer to you by, right?"

"Now who says that I really mind all that much, hm? Now get along, Nini; the sun's coming up in just a few hours, let's get a quick nap into you."

* * *

She fell asleep the moment that she'd finally gotten herself back to the bedroll— "Dodge the Stick" was merely the last exercise they'd run through, rather than the sum of her training, and she'd been dead tired before they had ever gotten around to it. It was only for a few hours that Nini slept, though, and she woke with the knocking which accompanied breakfast. There was nothing warm with it, and so there was no reason to get it just right now, especially when she wasn't even all that hungry. She'd probably get to it in an hour or two.

Instead, Nini walked to the cabinet, making sure not to step on Hidama, who was mostly curled up beneath the old desk, but had a paw and most of a leg poking out, curled around a bottle of rose wine. Gyatso had given her an odd look when she'd first requested it, but then immediately left to ensure that there'd always be some in stock. There was little light in the room, and it was possible to see a faint, smoldering glow around the edges of his closed eyelids, and a curl of smoke illuminated by the dim light. Nini spared him a glance as she passed. He was alright; even if she sometimes wanted to bash his head in, he wasn't too bad, and he was able to answer some of her questions, and lend his aid when she needed it. Sometimes having somebody to talk to, whether to make random conversation or to ask for advice, was more than worth anything else that he could have provided, even if he was drunk on the rose wine as often as he wasn't— that said, he kept his gaze where it should be far more easily when he was drunk, which was something most unexpected, and once she'd realized this, Nini had been almost as eager as he was to secure a ready supply of rose wine for him.

Opening a cabinet as quietly as she could, she removed one of the scrolls, closed the cabinet, and then quickly made her way back to the bedroll, grabbing the candle as she passed by Hidama again, and then curled up as she rolled open the scroll.

It wasn't a technique on Bending, but one of Aang's many other lessons. This one seemed to be on spirits, and a few minutes into it she turned her gaze to Hidama again as she thought on what her predecessor had said. Was it in his nature, to help her, just as it was the nature of household spirit to protect that household and serve it— and also punish it, should the spirit be offended— or was it entertained by her? It might not exactly be as clean-cut as that, she supposed, since a spirit's idea of entertainment was apparently somewhat different from a human's. Aang said that it might be more accurate, even if "entertainment" was usually said to be one of a spirit's two motivations, to speak of spirits as desiring not entertainment, but instead "satisfaction." She didn't entirely understand what he was saying, but figured that she understood the point he was trying to get at.

It was when she went further, though, that her eyes widened. He'd apparently started talking about Koh as a mere aside, illustrating a point on spirits, and how they might find entertainment, but then he ran on along a tangent, talking more about it. Koh was a very old spirit, Aang had written, and was just as wise. Koh was apparently aware of many things regarding the Avatar, having been there with the spirits Tui and La when they made the preparations necessary so that the Avatar might be able to Waterbend, just as the other three Great Spirits had been doing. His age and his experiences, together with the memories of those whose faces he had stolen, meant that a seeker would be almost guaranteed to at least know where to look for an answer, if Koh himself did not know it.

Nini reread some of the last few sentences, and then did so once again. The scroll had already mentioned Koh's particular… hobby, but she supposed that it just hadn't really hit her until just now. Well, she might not have met him before, but all that that meant was that she wasn't so afraid of the spirit that she would refuse to go to him, even if it meant allowing the Avatar Cycle to break.

Of course… "Hidama," she whispered, but the wolf-spirit didn't budge. "Hidama!"

He snorted, and rose his head. "Ye—" He groaned, trying to hold his head in his paws. "Oh, my head…"

"I have something to show you. I've been working on it for a long time now, but maybe it's time for me to get some help."

* * *

Hidama watched the bolt of blue lightning streak down the hallway, and seized his bottle of rose wine with both paws and took a long drink.

"Interesting," he said at last.

"But it doesn't…" Nini thought about how to phrase it. "It doesn't work perfectly. Sometimes it just fizzles, or it's bigger or smaller than I was trying to make it, and it takes too long."

"You didn't need to tell me that," Hidama told her. "I've been sitting here for nearly an hour waiting for something to happen, and now I'm not sure whether it actually did, or if I'm just drunk."

"Thanks, Hidama."

"Indulge my curiosity, my dear: Why tell me now?"

Nini looked at the scorch mark on the wall, twenty feet away. "I was mainly practicing just because I wanted to be… It was almost like it was something that was my own. Nobody was teaching it to me, and… it wasn't even a proper Bending style, right? Even if it's just branching off of something else, like Metalbending, I'm still… I'm like Bei Fong Toph, then, more or less."

"Yes and no," Hidama said after awhile. "This… lightning technique of yours has been used by many Avatars in the past, but it's not something to be used lightly. This is something even more secret than Energybending."

"Energybending isn't… Everyone knows about it."

"Once upon a time, they didn't. We live in rapidly changing times, and we're not even close to the really big change. Maybe after it's all over, Energybending will fade away again, relegated once again to the sole province of a precious few. But you _cannot_ let anyone know of this, do you understand?" He rested a paw just short of her shoulder. "This is the power of the Avatar, yours and yours alone. I don't know what else I can say to make sure that you never tell anyone of what you can do."

"Why is it so important that I keep it secret?"

Hidama looked away. "Suffice it to say that there are some people who would stop at nothing to use you for their own ends, Nini. I really do care about you, everyone that you've been, and everyone that you're ever going to be. But if I have to, I'll leave you to kill yourself accidentally with this, or do the job myself, if that's what it takes to make sure that the next you, and the you after him, and the you after her, and on and on, do not all have to pay for your foolishness." He paused. "Why are you asking me for help now?"

"I was reading about Koh," she said, and Hidama bristled.

"Go on," he ordered.

"Avatar Aang was too afraid to question Koh about the Avatar Cycle, but someone has to do it. I'm not stupid though. I'm not going to go up against Koh without every possible tool at my disposal that I can get my hands on. This was just an idle little curiosity before, but I'm not going to take chances and not develop it as much as I can before I face Koh."

"Face Koh… Aheheh." Hidama took a deep breath. "This might be even more important than you could possibly have imagined. But Koh? Oh, my dear, you're very lucky to be learning this beforehand. But I _will not_ train you if you do not promise to keep this secret."

Nini nodded.

"Promise me. Say it!"

"I promise."

Hidama smiled. "Now if only you were so agreeable with other matters… The first thing you need to do is relax. Let's start with that."

"I've already—"

"How do we know that you haven't picked up a bad habit?" he questioned her. "We'll start off at the basics.

_Water Year 1193_

_The Northern Air Temple, Province of Ba Sing Se, The Earth Kingdom_

There wasn't all that much for her to pack up. Just clothes, really. She threw them into a bag, and turned to look at the scrolls when she caught a glance of Sifu out of the corner of her eye.

"Hello Sifu Sifu," both Nini and Hidama called out, but the old woman only heard her student; she apparently didn't have the "knack," as Hidama called it.

"Planning on leaving without saying goodbye to me are you?" She smirked.

Nini closed the distance and hugged her tightly, bending down slightly. "Of course not, Sifu Sifu. But I do have to go today, and I thought that I should pack now."

"You call this packing, girl? My eyes may not be what they used to be, but don't think that I don't know just what it is that you've got. Which is nothing."

"I have clothes," Nini protested.

"Nothing," Sifu insisted. "Enough clothes to avoid having to go naked when you wash more than one set at a time isn't anything."

"Oh, perhaps you shouldn't have had so many clothes, Nini," remarked the wolf-spirit sitting next to her.

"Shut it, Hidama."

"I don't know what you said, spirit," Sifu muttered, waving her cane around and jabbing the air with it, "but you and I both know what she is. You'd best take that into consideration if you're wanting to stay lippy, hear?"

"Nini can do _whatever_ she'd like to me. Except beat me. Now _that's_ just impossible."

Nini glared at him. "Go. Before I kick you." The spirit sulked, but turned around and walked through a wall.

"He gone?" Nini nodded, and she continued. "Honestly, why you put up with him—"

"All he ever does is talk, Sifu Sifu. All I have to do is tune him out. He gives good advice, too. He's helped with my Bending. I'd probably still be here for another ten years if it wasn't for him."

"Maybe, maybe, but ten years? Nah, you're not that stupid."

"Thanks?" Nini muttered.

"You'd have gotten it down sooner than that, I'm sure. But sure… Hey, spirit! Thanks!" she shouted at Hidama.

"He helped me write some actual Airbending techniques down, too. That was actually a bit of a problem. Before he pointed it out, most of it was almost more Firebending or Waterbending, but with air."

"Keep an eye on him. Spirits know I can't do that." Sifu grinned, and laid a hand on her student's shoulder. "Take care of yourself. Right?"

"Of course, Sifu Sifu. But you need to do the same."

"Girl, I don't intend on just letting death take me. If it wants me, it has a fight on its hands, and that was how it was even before I had to deal with you telling me to not die all the time."

Nini smiled. "You just worry me sometimes."

"Nothing to die for, girl. Way it looks, you'll be having to deal with me for a long time."

_Water Year 1193_

_Harbor City, The Fire Nation_

_Not too sure what to say, really. _

_I don't know what I was expecting, but it was like I hadn't ever left. To put it another way, it's like I'd never lived at the South Pole in the first place. My mother was there, and I was able to talk to Pakku, although he's not doing very good right now, but I could have just been any random person who happened to be the Avatar, to everyone else in the tribe. _

_I guess it shouldn't surprise me. I wasn't exactly the most social kid, and I tried to stay by myself as much as possible, even wandered away on many an occasion, as Pakku made sure to remind me when I talked to him, and when I did interact with other people willingly, it was usually to set up some horrible prank. _

_It's still not the best feeling in the world. _

_I'd figured that it would have felt great, coming home after I'd mastered the elements, and seeing those few people who actually want to remember me was nice, and I promised my mother that I would come back again, but I don't know… It's troubling. I don't feel like I belong here. _

_I don't know why you were worrying about whether or not I'd come. Of course I will. You should probably get this letter before I arrive, but I don't really know why I didn't come straight back to Capital City the moment I was done, or why I at least didn't come straight after I left my tribe. Is it even _my _tribe anymore? I can't even think about it without getting the sense that there's just something very wrong about it. I feel like a stranger there. _

_I just need to sort some things out, you know, and then I'll be coming. Don't worry, I shouldn't be more than a week. I look forward to coming back. Very much. _

_With love, _

_Nini_

"I'm not to be talked about," Hidama said, and Nini smiled.

"Of course not," she said, and she looked down at him, and scratched the top of his head.

"Will you stop doing that?"

"I can't _help_ it. You remind me a polar bear dog."

"Everyone is getting off now," he pointed out to her.

"Oh? Well, then let's go. Perhaps you should stop distracting me."

"Me? I'm… Really, don't talk about me, around them."

Nini scratched him again. "Honestly, it's like you think that I'm incapable of keeping my mouth shut."

"Once upon a time…"

Nini smiled and followed after the last few passengers, walking down the ramp. Most of them were Fire Nation, but there was a not-inconsiderable number of Earth Kingdom citizens, judging by their dress.

"Do you see anyone?" she asked Hidama, and she continued to look out at the crowd, trying to pick out—

"Nini!" she heard, and her eyes widened.

"Hello Kahchi!"

"Don't break a leg running down," Hidama muttered.

Nini stopped short of barreling into the man and threw her arms around him. "It's been awhile."

"Yes it has." He smiled, and waited for her to let go. "I got your letter just a few days ago," he said as they began walking. "I'm sorry to hear about what happened."

She exhaled slowly. "It's fine. Really." She grinned, but it wasn't clear to Kahchi if it was genuine or just being put on for his benefit. "I don't know how long I'm going to be staying here, but I do know that when I'm done, this is where I'm coming back."

"Sappy," Hidama mumbled, and Nini was glad that Kahchi was looking elsewhere at that moment, so that she didn't need to explain why she had just swatted at the air. "Will you get me lots of rose wine while we're here? I know you're busy, don't say anything if the answer is 'yes.'"

"No," she answered softly.

"Did you say something?" Kahchi asked.

"Yes, actually. I don't suppose that at some point in the past several years, you've managed to convince the Fire Sages to let me into the Dragonbone Catacombs with you?"

"Why yes, actually. Yes I have. Do you think that you'll be able to stay for at least the rest of the week?" he suddenly asked.

"Probably, although I've been listening to my instincts for a little while now, and…" She looked at Hidama, "something might give me the feeling that it's time to follow up on a clue about Airbending. Right now, though, I don't see anything. I should be alright. Why do you ask?"

"Kaminari is going to assume the Chrysanthemum Throne."

"Azariya is dead?"

Kahchi froze, confusion evident on his face for a split second. "Oh. No. _No_. As he put it, he sees no reason why he has to die before his daughter becomes Fire Lord, and would very much like to see her sit in the Chrysanthemum Throne. He's also made mention of such things as wanting to see how the Fire Nation would run under her rule for a few years while he is in a position where he can advise her, but he's not fooling anyone in the family. Not that he's trying to, of course. It's all for the benefit of certain ministers who think that this is all highly irregular."

"Well it is, isn't it?"

"No, actually," commented Hidama.

Kahchi smiled lightly. "In some situations, this has been a highly public affair, but we've always preferred to keep it private. Regardless, both Azariya and Kaminari would be happy to see you there, if you aren't taken away before then. It should be three days from now."

"I'm not going to be able to walk with you, Nini," Hidama said. "There are some places I can't go."

Nini nodded and returned her attention to Kahchi. "I'm honored. Of course I'll attend."

"Great. Perhaps, once you're settled, we could go through the Dragonbone Catacombs tomorrow."

_Water Year 1193_

_Capital City, The Fire Nation_

The old Fire Sage standing beside the iron vault-door gave Kahchi and Nini a withering look at they passed by him. Kahchi had eventually managed to convince them to allow Nini entry, but nothing was going to make them _happy_ about it.

Inside, it was only dimly lit by a few candles here and there. "There are an awful lot of cobwebs here," Nini observed shortly after they entered.

"We don't come in here very often, except to bring in the remains of another member of the Royal Family, and we don't spend time touching it up when we do come in. Save for what changes we cause with our occasional disturbances, we allow the Dragonbone Catacombs to remain in their natural state. If we were to clean here regularly, in order to keep everything neat and orderly and, well, cobweb-free, we would be coming here far too often. I myself will probably only come here once or twice more in my life," Kahchi said. "Only Kaminari will enter in order to place her father's bones where they belong."

"So is that why there was the trouble you had with getting permission from the Fire Sages?"

Kahchi nodded. "Even now, the Fire Lord is considered to be an extension of the council of the Fire Sages. As with all other Fire Sages, he can come and go as he pleases. As for the rest of the Royal Family, we have… unique circumstances which allow us entry." Kahchi turned and headed down another hallway. "While you are the Avatar, you will find that this does little to uplift you in the eyes of the Fire Sages."

"Why? I'd thought that the Fire Sages were… Well, I guess that loyalty doesn't imply that they like the Avatar…" Nini concluded.

"Actually, the problem is that you are not an Avatar of the Fire Nation," Kahchi said. He smiled. "Avatars tend to… _attract_ people."

"_Oh_?" Nini grinned, and Kahchi glared at her, but he wasn't able to keep his face serious for more than a second.

"Not like that. It's possible that this has something to do with the fact that you are the incarnation of the spirit of this world. Spirits tend to attract devotion, you see. The little ones attract little devotion, and you might not even notice it as such. You leave out a bowl of milk for one kind of spirit, so that it will not kill your ostrich horses, or you leave out a bag of sesame seeds to keep a devouring spirit occupied, so that it will spend the rest of its existence continually counting them, but eventually losing track and having to start over. Even when it comes to the little spirits, when they interact with us, we cannot help but notice them, and go out of our way in order to influence them. When it comes to the greater spirits, such as Agni, the spirit of the sun, or Tu Di Gong, the spirit of the land, which is a lesser thing than the whole world, we cease to simply attempt to placate them, and actively venerate them. The Great Spirits call out to the spirits in our bodies."

"So that's what happens with the Avatars?"

"Basically. We call them Avatar cults, most of the time, and they usually arise toward the end of an Avatar's life, or after his death. They persist for a few further incarnations, but then they fade away or are caught up by another Avatar. The cult of Avatar Hahn faded away within a couple of generations. The Kyoshi Warriors will last for a long time, I suspect, because what Avatar Kyoshi did in creating the island was simply so blatant, but then again, we might find that your immediate successor is capable of drawing them away. Many times, a previous cult becomes the foundation for a new one."

"The Sensu Kata are the cult of Avatar Aang?"

"Yes. These cults often retain the remains of the one they venerate, such as Avatar Kyoshi's boots, kimono, and fans. The Sensu Kata in particular venerate certain bones of Avatar Aang's."

"That's…"

"It's actually not too different from the Fire Sages except that, in the tradition of the Air Nomads, they fashioned a musical instrument from his left thighbone, and a cup from his skull."

"I suppose I understand why Gyatso wasn't thrilled about them."

"Avatar Aang actually did the same thing to that man's namesake. If you travel to the Southern Air Temple, you should be able to see them, even though these artifacts are usually entombed away."

"So the Fire Sages are whose cult, then?"

"The Fire Sages somehow hit upon a particularly ingenious method of keeping the cult intact, although it happened so long ago that nobody has any idea whether it was accidental or purposeful. They have, you see, stayed in existence for thousands of years by venerating the Avatar of the Fire Nation in general, and not any particular one. By the time that they would begin to fade, the next Avatar of the Fire Nation comes along, and they are rejuvenated."

Kahchi entered a room, and sat down before a stone box, which was rooted firmly in the ground. Writing, of a sort which Nini couldn't read, was carved into the sides. The bones of Fire Lord Zuko and his sister, Kahchi would later explain.

"Bones are important to us. After the body is burned, it is the bones which are left, and we divide the nobility according to the purity and worth of their bones. Occasionally, nobility might be granted as a reward for great service, and these are the clans of Fresh Bone. Clan Hatamoto, from which we draw the bodyguards of the Royal Family and important officials, began as a clan of Fresh Bone for the very reason that it provides our bodyguards: Long ago, the head of the clan sacrificed his life in order to save the Fire Lord. In time, intermarriage with other families brought them into the ranks of the True Bone, whose members are the descendants of spirits. The Chans, the Lees, the Meis, and so on. The Fire Lord has always belonged to one of these clans. You belong to something entirely different, however.

"Those who can trace their lineage to one of the Great Spirits are considered to be of Sacred Bone. As the Avatar, and thus the spirit of the world, your children, and their children, and onward, would be of Sacred Bone, and because of certain agreements which Agni made, long ago, all those who are born of the Sacred Bone are adopted by him, and so are his children, and it is simple recognition which makes one literally of a spirit's bloodline, which actually brings us full circle to the special circumstances of our family."

"What do you mean?"

"Two movements of the Cycle ago, Avatar Roku married a young woman, and sired a bloodline which would eventually culminate in Fire Lord Zuko, Azariya's father. Through Zuko, the status of Sacred Bone comes down to my parents and aunts and uncles and cousins and siblings, and the rest of the Royal Family. Being Agni's children, in his eyes and in the eyes of the Spirit World, we are able to enter the Dragonbone Catacombs as we please."

"But if that's true, why was there any trouble with allowing me entrance?"

"Because you're not the Avatar of the Fire Nation, meaning that you're basically just a placeholder until the _real _Avatar arrives, in their eyes, and while ultimately they can do nothing to keep you out, they were able to pull all sorts of tricks to delay things."

_Water Year 1194_

_Capital City, The Fire Nation_

"Going so soon?" Kahchi asked, smiling.

Nini looked up from her packing, glad that he couldn't see Hidama, sprawled across the floor and drunk on rose wine. "I've been here for three months. Besides, I'll be back. I can't sit around and do nothing about the Air Nomads, though."

"Finally got the feeling that it's time to start, then. How long do you think you'll be?"

"I don't know. I'm going to start at Sinaliarpok, but I don't know where I'll be going after that."

"Do stay safe, Nini."

"You're worrying too much."

"Don't forget to write."


End file.
